Examples of hidden disabilities
There are many hidden disabilities, too many to list them all in this article. My focus in this article is to give you examples of hidden disabilities, describe characteristics of the disability, and then list techniques to address these disabilities in e-Learning. I’ll also discuss some of the more common hidden disabilities. It is important to note that people with hidden disabilities discussed in this article all have average to above average intelligence.
Acquired Brain Injury
Acquired Brain Injury could be caused by lack of oxygen, poisoning, infection, or trauma to the head such as a strike by an object (most common type of brain injury). Over five million Americans today are living with a traumatic brain injury-related disability (www.healthsystem.virginia.edu). Cognitive as well as physical deficits may occur. Cognitive deficits include language and communication, information processing, memory and perceptual skill challenges. Physical deficits may include ambulation, balance, fine motor skills, strength, and endurance.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
ADHD is another neurobiological disorder in which the person displays developmentally inappropriate levels of attention, concentration, distractibility, and impulsivity. While all adults may exhibit one or more of the symptoms of ADHD, those with ADHD consistently display these characteristics and behaviors over a period of time and, most importantly, these symptoms impair a person’s daily living. These behaviors may include distractibility, impulsivity, inattention, difficulty staying on task, having many projects going on at one time and rarely completing any of them, irritability, difficulty falling asleep, and difficulty waking up.
Asperger’s Syndrome
Asperger’s Syndrome is a milder variant of Autism. Similar to Autism, individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome have serious deficits in social and communication skills and may isolate themselves socially and display eccentric behavior. People with Asperger’s Syndrome have impairments in two-sided social interactions and non-verbal communication, have difficulty in articulating due to abnormalities of inflection, may display repetitive speech, and typically have gross motor difficulties.
Auditory Perceptual Deficit
This means that a person has difficulty receiving accurate information through auditory means, even though there is not a problem with their hearing. The problem is in how the brain interprets what is heard. People may have challenges understanding and remembering oral instructions, differentiating between similar sounds, may hear inaccurately, or have challenges hearing one sound over a background noise.
Autism
Autism is a complex developmental disability, and affects each person differently and in varying degrees as it is a spectrum disorder. Adults with autism typically show difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication and social interactions. People with autism may also process and respond to information in unique ways, display uneven gross or fine motor skills and may be non-responsive to verbal cues. Autistic individuals are also resistant to change, prefer being alone, display little or no contact, and may be sensitive to sound. According to Autism-Society.org, as many as 1.5 million Americans today have some form of autism, and this number is on the rise.
Bipolar disorder
Three million people in the
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a cognitive deficit in which a person's reading and/or writing ability is significantly lower than that which would be predicted by his or her general level of intelligence. People are diagnosed as dyslexic when their reading problems cannot be explained by a lack of intellectual ability, inadequate instruction, or sensory problems such as poor eyesight. Adults with dyslexia may have difficulty with word recognition that significantly affects acquisition of knowledge and ability to analyze written material. They may also display a slow rate of reading, difficulty with spelling and written composition, and difficulty taking notes.
In addition to the typical forms of dyslexia, there are numerous related disorders (taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/):
- Scotopic sensitivity syndrome — a form of dyslexia which makes it very difficult for a person to read black text on white paper.
- Dyxpraxia — a neurological disorder characterized by a marked difficulty in carrying out routine tasks involving balance, fine-motor control, and kinesthetic coordination.
- Verbal Dyspraxia — a neurological disorder characterized by marked difficulty in the use of speech sounds, which is the result of an immaturity in the speech production area of the brain.
- Dysgraphia — a neurological disorder characterized by distorted and incorrect writing. Causes difficulty with forming letters or writing within a defined space.
- Dyscalculia — a neurological disorder characterized by a problem with learning fundamentals and one or more of the basic numerical skills. Often people with this disorder can understand very complex mathematical concepts and principles but have difficulty processing formulas and even basic addition and subtraction. Dyscalculia causes people to have problems doing arithmetic and grasping mathematical concepts, more so than the average person who has difficulty in math.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
CFS affects between 500,000 and 800,000 Americans, and according to National Institutes of Health, CFS most commonly occurs in women ages 30 to 50. Individuals display profound fatigue that is not improved with bed rest and may worsen with physical or mental activity. Individuals with CFS may have difficulty concentrating, experience migraine headaches, photosensitivity, and temperature sensitivity.
Depression
Depression is one of the most common and most serious mental disorders. A depressive disorder involves the body, mood, and thoughts. Depression may be characterized by having a lack of motivation, difficulty doing tasks, short attention span, decreased appetite, crying spells, difficulty in getting to sleep or sleeping too much, and in the more severe cases thoughts of self harm. In any given 1-year period, 9.5 percent of the population, or about 18.8 million American adults, suffer from a depressive illness (nimh.nih.gov). Depression affects a person’s productivity, judgment, ability to work with others, and overall job performance.
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a chronic medical condition produced by temporary changes in electrical function of the brain, causing seizures which affect awareness, movement, or sensation. While on the job, people with epilepsy might experience limitations related to memory, disorientation, disorganization, time management, performing or completing tasks, difficulty using office equipment including the computer, limitations in motor abilities, and limitations associated with photosensitivity including using the computer and alternative lighting.
Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS)
Depending on the source, it is reported that from 3 to 6 million (some report as high as 12 million) Americans suffer from Fibromyalgia. FMS is a chronic condition that causes an individual widespread pain and severe fatigue, either all over the body or in one particular region. Individuals with Fibromyalgia may have difficulty concentrating, experience gross and fine motor impairments, and fatigue and weakness.
Lupus
Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that affects one out of every 185 Americans. It causes inflammation of various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints, blood, and kidneys. People with Lupus experience joint and muscle pain, fatigue, photosensitivity, fine and gross motor impairment, cognitive impairment, and fatigue.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
MS is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that causes destruction of a protein that forms a protective coating around the nerve cells. When this protein is destroyed, signals carried through the nerve cells are interrupted or delayed, resulting in various neurological symptoms occurring throughout the body. People with MS may have difficulty walking, experience numbness or feelings of pins and needles, have pain and loss of vision, undergo inflammation of the optic nerve, experience lack of coordination, and may have slurred speech. On the job, individuals with MS may face cognitive impairment, fatigue, fine and gross motor impairment, heat sensitivity, as well as vision and speech impairment.
Sensory Integration Dysfunction
Sensory Integration Dysfunction is a neurological disorder. This disorder refers to a person's ability to register and process information from their five commonly known senses (vision, auditory, touch, olfaction, and taste) plus their sense of movement and their positional sense. For example, a person with sensory integration dysfunction may be unable to filter out background noise to focus on their task at hand. As a result they may become hyperactive or distracted. People with sensory integration dysfunction may be extremely sensitive to lighting, or someone without positional sensitivity may not be aware of the boundaries of their body, like where the beginning and end of their arms are.
Visual Perceptual Deficit
About 40% of all Americans have functional vision deficits (www.vision-therapy.com). Visual perceptual deficit is just one of these many deficits. People with visual perceptual deficit have difficulty receiving and/or processing accurate information from the sense of sight, even though there is nothing wrong with their vision. These individuals may have challenges picking out an object from a background of other objects or seeing things in correct order. People with visual perceptual deficit may experience reversals of letters, for instance mistaking a “b” for a “d”, or lose their place frequently when reading.
