Question

Speech on disability is not an obstacle for success

Answer 1

The recent World Report on Disability by World Health Organization revealed that about 6.9 billion people from 74 countries across the world were diagnosed with some disability. Developing countries account for more than 80 percent of people having disabilities.

An advocate for persons with disability, Professor Stephen W. Hawking says, “Disability need not be an obstacle to success. I have had motor neurone disease for practically all my adult life. Yet it has not prevented me from having a prominent career in astrophysics and a happy family life.”

A person is considered to be handicapped if a disability of his body or mind interferes with his ability to lead a normal life or to benefit from a normal education.

Types of disabilities and causes

A person may have one or more handicaps:

Like us on FacebookPartial or total blindness.Partial or total deafness.Bone, joint or muscle disorders. (For example, inborn defects of spine, after-effects of major bone fractures and joint infections, muscular disorders.)Nervous system disorders, like mental retardation, cerebral palsy, spinal cord defects, after-effects of poliomyelitis, etc.Long-standing heart, lung, kidney and other organ diseases.

The handicap may occur in a child due to some disease or disorder affecting him during life in mother’s womb, during the process of birth or later during childhood. In some cases, like muscular dystrophy, the handicap occurs as a result of an inherited disorder.

How to prevent them

The problem of disability can be prevented at early stage of detection and appropriate management at right time. Careful pregnancy planning, regular medical checkup and care of the pregnant mother and supervised delivery of the baby are important steps towards prevention of several disabilities. Timely immunization against poliomyelitis, diphtheria and other preventable diseases and early treatment of the affected child help to prevent many lifelong disabilities.

Early detection is important

Timely intervention helps to correct or limit disability and permits optimum results of rehabilitation therapy. While some defects are obvious, some abnormalities in small babies like mental retardation, visual and hearing defects may remain unrecognized by parents until the child grows up.

Parents should therefore have some basic knowledge of the normal process of a baby’s development so that they can perceive early any abnormal developmental delays or deviations in their child and seek medical advice at an early stage. The child should also be routinely assessed for hearing and vision in early infancy.