Disability Types

Nationwide, 15% of students in kindergarten through twelfth grade have disabilities Links to an external site.. That increases to about one in five for college-age students, meaning that roughly 20% of all undergraduate students have a disability. If we look at working-aged adults, that number jumps to one in four, or just over 25% of the population with a disability. If we pan forward to adults at retirement age—now considered to be close to 70—nearly half could have a disability. That's why accessibility is sometimes referred to as "designing for our future selves."

 

The number of World Campus students who receive accommodations continues to grow. Each of these students is unique. From the type of assistive technology they use to how long they've lived with their disability, a variety of factors affect how they interact with online courses. What follows is a brief introduction to the types of disabilities these students can have, which you should be thinking about when designing online courses.

High-Incidence Disabilities

High-incidence disabilities are more prevalent in society, including our University community. The majority of people with disabilities at Penn State fall into this category. Often, their disabilities are hidden or invisible—not always readily apparent.

• cognitive
  • attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause issues with focus, impulsive behavior, overactivity, and executive function
  • auditory processing disorder (APD): an auditory (hearing) system disorder that disrupts the way that a person's brain understands what they're hearing
  • autism spectrum disorder (ASD): brain-related developmental disability that may cause problems with social communication and interaction, restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests, and various ways of learning, moving, or paying attention 
  • learning disorders: problems reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), ​or doing math (dyscalculia) 
  • psychological disorders
    • depression
    • anxiety
    • bipolar disorder
  • traumatic brain injury (TBI)
• physical health disorders
  • fibromyalgia
  • diabetes
  • chronic illness
  • migraines

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Low-Incidence Disabilities

Low-incidence disability types may be less prevalent, but they often need more resources to accommodate.

• hearing impairments: deafness and hardness of hearing (Deaf with a capital D refers to the Deaf community.)
• mobility impairments
  • spinal cord injuries
  • amputations
  • paralysis
• neurological
  • epilepsy
  • cerebral palsy (which also causes mobility impairment)
• speech disorders
  • stuttering
  • speech difficulties, sometimes related to brain injury 
• vision impairments
  • blindness
  • low vision
  • color-blindness 

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Reference

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