Re: Box 3-1 Tower of Disability Babel

Denis,
I apologize for giving the wrong number today and assume you called the
announced number.  

We discussed the WHO/NIH definitions in the CG group telecon yesterday and
today in the UA telecon.  The CG group felt that the WHO/NIH definitions
were based on a medical model of disability that focused on impairment.
The more contemporary use of disability is as a person with different
capabilites and emphesizes inclusion into society.  This later definition
is what is meant in the current use of "disability" in the WAI guidelines.
It was also stated in the CG that the WHO definitions are not welcomed by
most disability groups and that we would run into touble with them if we
started using impairment, instead of disability in the documents.  

So today at the meeting we decided to not use the WHO/NIH definitions and
stay with the terminology we are currently using.
  
Can you live with this?

Thanks,
Jon

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Wednesday, 15 December 1999 16:05:17 UTC