Disability Studies: Client Group, Current Issues, Theories, and Ways of Promoting Inclusion

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DISABILITY STUDIES
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Introduction
Merriam-Webster defines disability as a physical, cognitive, mental or developmental
condition that impairs the person's ability to involve in certain tasks or activities or hinder
them from participating in the typical day's activities and interactions. Davis (2016) “The
disability studies reader” attributes it to be either an intellectual, cognitive, psychiatric, sensory,
neurological or physical impairment or even combination of two or more of those impairments.
Incapacitation may be due to injury or illness or may occur in the course of persons’ lifetime.
Some people are born with the disability while others acquire it after birth. The condition may be
permanent or semi-permanent, chronic or episodic. Disability according to the Disability Act
2005 is a substantial restriction or incapacity of a person to carry on a profession, business or
occupation due to physical, mental or intellectual impairment.
Rendering to the recent 2016 census, 643131 people were accounting to 13.5% of the
people who lived with a disability as to April 2016. This is an increase to the 2011 census where,
595355, which is equivalent to 13 %, of the total Ireland population, were reported to have
disabilities. The census took into consideration the following definitions; blindness, deafness,
intellectual disability, difficulty in learning, physical impairment, psychological impairment and
people suffering from other chronic conditions (Statistics, 2016).
Client group living with disabilities and current Issues impacting on their lives
The outlined client group is the working group of people with disabilities aged 15-64
year about the 2011 and 2016 census. According to the census statistics, at least I in 10 people in
the working group have a disability. This value is increasing sharply with age as 3 out of every 5
aged people of 60-64 years are suffering from at least one of the chronic condition. People with

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disability are more likely not to be working. For people aged 25-35, less than half of them were
engaged in an economic activity. This is better off compared to the age group bracket 55-64
where only a quarter of them engaged in economic activity. More than 74 % of people with
disabilities are currently not at work due to their difficulties. This means only 26% of the
population is currently working. This is in contrast to the national average of 23% for people
with no disability. This forces this group of people to languish in poverty at 13% compared to
2% for national average for the employed people. Another challenge for the working group is
that they are less likely to be in professional or managerial work as compared to people with no
disability. Only 8.9% of the population of people with disability are engaged in professional and
managerial work in the working sector. People with a disability in the client group are much less
likely to have completed third-level education. According to the statistics, only 24.5 % of them
are being educated to this level, compared with 38.7 per cent of the overall population (Statistics,
2016).
At work, the working group of people living with disabilities face a pool of challenges.
The physical environment is a strain as places of work become inaccessible (Cartwright et.al,
2018, p.47). Public transport also become a challenge as most of the public transport means lack
supportive gears to aid the aboard. According to Carver et al (2016), there is a lack of relevant
technology; assistive technology, to assist them in their places of work discrimination at work.
There is also a lack of substantial public awareness to members of the public about the nature of
this special group in the society or the workplace. As a result, the disable feel neglected or
rejected to fit in the group of others.