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CyberDodo and persons with disabilities (2-20)

Do persons with disabilities have rights ? 2/2

There are many different types of disabilities and numerous terms have been used at different moments in history to designate a person with a disability. Generally, there is a distinction made between two different categories of disability physical or mental. Representing on average 2% of the population, persons with intellectual disabilities usually have either down's syndrome or fragile X syndrome.

It is important to draw a distinction here between psychiatric disabilities and other disabilities that are more specific with respect to cognitive functions such as language and/or learning disorders. Psychiatric disabilities are principally manifested as difficulties in terms of one's relational life, communication and behavior, including for example obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), schizophrenia or autism.

A child with a disability has the same rights as all other children

Physical disabilities may be visual in nature (from persons needing to wear glasses to those affected by blindness), related to hearing, or involve an impairment in motor functions, such as paraplegia (more or less total paralysis of the lower extremities), quadriplegia (paralysis of all four limbs, both arms and legs), cerebral vascular accidents or myopathy.

There are many different types of disabilities and one may hear the term polydisabled (Combination of severe motor and intellectual disabilities potentially associated with additional disabilities which entail a very significant restriction of autonomy). A pluridisabled person is said to have a combination of disabilties of the same level of seriousness such that it is not possible to distinguish one in particular as more serious. It is also possible for a disability to be exacerbated by relational difficulties related to an existent disability.

It is important to point out that given similar disabilities, level of incapacity or the limitation of activity is largely dependent on the context in which the disabled person develops.

Various international treaties aim to counteract the discriminations that persons with disabilities experience in their daily life. The goal is to ensure that the right of each human being to respect and dignity is respected.

It is absolutely critical that our treatment of persons with disabilities undergoes a radical change so that the environmental and behavioral obstacles that make us see a disabled person instead of a person disappear.

In conclusion, it is important to recall that Article 23 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the rights of children with disabilities to be the same as those of non-disabled children.