Re: DefineDisability FIRST

> First define disability.

> IMO, before you can define Accessibility you must first define disability.

OK. Here's my short definition:

"Disability is a design flaw in the environment." 

Here's the long version, from a chapter in an upcoming book on web-based
training:

"People are not "disabled." A disability is a consequence of design flaws
in the environment. Some individuals, due to accident, illness, or
heredity, have difficulties performing -- or cannot perform -- certain
tasks, such as moving their legs, seeing, hearing, talking, grasping or
lifting. When these functional limitations are severe enough to adversely
affect a person's performance, and the natural and human environments fail
to accommodate their functional limitations, the individual is said to
have a disability."

You take your pick. If I were rewriting it, I would say something like
this:

... ALL individuals, due to circumstance, accident, illness, or heredity,
have difficulties performing -- or cannot perform -- certain tasks...

Alan

Alan Cantor
Cantor + Associates
Workplace Accommodation Consultants
New e-mail address: acantor@interlog.com
http://www.interlog.com/~acantor