When you hear the word "disability", what is the first thing comes to mind? Many might answer, "a wheelchair". Others might answer "blindness" or "deafness". These are conditions that are widely recognized as preventing people from living the way that most others do. When we see someone in a wheelchair, walking with a cane, or flapping their hands, we think "that person is disabled", but not many able-bodied people think about what a disability is, including many people in charge of agencies that provide support or funding. The truth is that the word "disability" has been defined in different ways by different organizations, and has undergone many shifts in meaning over the decades. The combination of public ignorance and these conflicting definitions has made the process of obtaining the very supports that we disabled people need unnecessarily daunting and confusing.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a person with a disability is "a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity." The Social Security Administration defines a disability as "the inability to do any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment" (emphasis added). Because these two definitions are different, a person can be simultaneously "disabled" according to the ADA and "not disabled" according to the SSA. Such people are not few; anyone who requires workplace accommodations but can work and earn a substantial income as long as those accommodations are made falls into this trap. This includes autistic people who need extra breaks, or visually impaired people who need to have instructions and policies read to them. This conflict creates problems when they need to communicate with people like employers or public agencies who may not necessarily understand the situation.
For example, an autistic person works as a data entry clerk but needs extra breaks, so he requests this from his employer as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. The employer grants this request. However, his father is retired, and so he also tries to apply for Social Security benefits. He is denied because his job pays above the level of income that is considered to be "substantial gainful activity". The letter that he receives states that he is "not disabled". His employer hears about this, becomes suspicious of malingering, and removes the accommodation of extra breaks. In order to continue working, the autistic person is then forced to engage in a long, heated argument with his supervisor or leave and seek other employment.
This sort of hassle results entirely from two different legal definitions created for different political purposes. It would be very nice if there was a universally agreed-upon, legal definition of the word "disabled". That way, situations like this would not arise.
