Disability Glossary
Accessible: Activity or place capable of being reached by persons with disabilities.
Accommodations: Techniques and materials that allow individuals with LD to complete school or work t asks with greater ease and effectiveness. Examples include spellcheckers, tape recorders, and expanded time for completing assignments.
Acquired Brain Injury: Injury to the brain that occurs after birth and can include anoxia, drug reactions, infection, stroke, trauma and tumors.
Activities of Daily Living (ADL): Tasks essential to performance of routine self-care functions, such as dressing, bathing and eating.
Advocate: Individual who has been designated by a person or a person’s legal representative to speak on the person’s behalf and help the person understand and make informed choices in matters related to identification of needs and choices of supports and services.
Angelman's Syndrome: A neurogenic disorder first described by British physician Harry Angelman in 1965. There are currently about 1,000 cases in the United States. Angelman's Syndrome is the result of missing genetic information on the maternal side of the 15th chromosome. Classic characteristics of the disorder include: a jerky gait or walk, severe developmental delays, short attention span, absence of speech, protruding tongue, wide mouths, widely spaced teeth, drooling, seizures, sleep disturbances, and an extremely happy personality accompanied by excessive laughing and smiling.
Aphasia: An impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always due to injury to the brain, most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. Aphasia may also result from head trauma, brain tumors or infections.
Asperger's Syndrome (AS): a developmental disorder that effects a persons ability to understand other people and socially interact with them. People with AS, while having trouble making eye contact, are unable to read and respond to social cues and body language. Persons with AS tend to repeat certain phrases or words repeatedly. Symptoms of the syndrome can include: clumsiness or lack of coordination, extreme self-absorption, limited interests, unusual preoccupations, ritual or repetitive routines, speech and language peculiarities and non-verbal communication difficulties. AS is a Spectrum Disorder which means that symptoms range greatly.
Assessment: Process of identifying: a) a person's strengths, preferences, functional skills and need for support and services; b) the extent to which natural supports and informal providers are able to meet the person's need for support and services; and c) the extent to which human services agencies and providers are able to provide or develop needed support or services.
Assisted Living: Package of individualized supportive services provided to a person residing in a residential center (apartment buildings) or Housing with Services establishment.
Assistive Technology: Equipment that enhances the ability of students and employees to be more efficient and successful. For individuals with LD, computer grammar checkers, an overhead projector used by a teacher, or the audiovisual information delivered through a CD-ROM would be typical examples.
Attention Deficit Disorder: A neurobehavioral disorder that affects 3 to 5 percent of all American children. It interferes with a person's ability to sustain attention or focus on a task and some patients may be unable to control impulsive behavior.
Attention Deficit Disorder Hyperactivity Disorder: A neurobiological disorder. Symptoms include hyperactivity, distractibility, impulsiveness, developmentally-inappropriate behavior and appear in early childhood, typically before seven years of age and usually lasting at least six months.
Autism: A developmental disorder of brain function. People with classical autism show three types of symptoms: impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication and imagination and unusual or severely limited activities and interests.
Behavior Disorders/Emotional Disturbance: Many terms are used interchangeably to classify children who exhibit extreme or unacceptable chronic behavior problems. These children lag behind their peers in social development and are often isolated from others either because they withdraw from social contact or because they behave in an aggressive, hostile manner. Behavior disorders result from persistent negative social interactions between the child and the environment. Behavior disorders generally consist of four clusters of traits, including conduct disorders, anxiety-withdrawal, immaturity and socialized aggression.
Bipolar Disorder: Also known as manic depression, is a mental illness involving episodes of serious mania and depression. The person's mood swings from excessively "high" and irritable to sad and hopeless and then back again, with periods of the person's normal mood in between.
Brain Imaging Techniques: Recently developed, noninvasive techniques for studying the activity of living brains. Includes brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM), computerized axial tomography (CAT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Caregiver: Person who has primary responsibility for the assistance and supervision for a person.
Cerebral Palsy: A life-long condition caused by damage to the brain during pregnancy, labor or shortly following birth. "Cerebral" refers to the brain, and "palsy" to muscle weakness or poor control of movement or posture. It is not a disease; and it is neither progressive nor communicable. There is no single cause of cerebral palsy. It is characterized by the inability to control motor functions and can result in involuntary movement, disturbance in gait and mobility and impairment of sight, hearing and speech.
Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy: Services and interventions specifically designed to improve cognitive functions.
Community Inclusion: When people are not treated differently because of the color of their skin, their religion or because they have a disability. Community inclusion refers to persons with and without disabilities living side by side in a city, town or neighborhood.
Crisis Services: Services that provide specific short-term care and intervention strategies to a person due to the need for relief and support of the caregiver and/or protection of the person or others living with that person. This includes addressing both medical and behavioral needs.
Depression: Strong feelings of sadness, hopelessness, pessimism and a general loss of interest in life, combined with a sense of reduced emotional well-being which often occurs without apparent cause (such as a death of a loved one) and may persist over time. Clinical depression is the most common of the psychiatric illnesses with 10 to 15% of the population suffering from it at some time in their lives.
Diabetes: A disorder caused by insufficient or absent production of the hormone insulin by the pancreas. There are two principal types of diabetes: Type I - insulin-dependant diabetes, the more severe form usually occurring before the age of 35 and Type II - non-insulin-dependent diabetes, which usually develops in people over age 40.
Direct Instruction: An instructional approach to academic subjects that emphasizes the use of carefully sequenced steps that include demonstration, modeling, guided practice, and independent application.
Di George Syndrome: A rare but often complex genetic abnormality caused by a deletion of chromosome 22 with prevalence estimated at 1:4000 live births. The most common presentation in the neonatal period begins with the diagnoses of a cardiac defect. Clinical features include congenital heart defects, facial anomalies, and hypoplastic thymus with immune deficiencies palatal anomalies and neonatal hypocalcaemia. Late presentations of Di George Syndrome can occur in children between the ages of 3-6 who show developmental delays, moderate to severe behavioral problems and recurrent airway infection.
Down Syndrome: A genetic condition caused by extra genetic material (genes) from the 21st chromosome. The extra genes cause certain characteristics that we know as Down Syndrome. Individuals with Down Syndrome also have all the other genes given to them by their parents. As a result, they have a combination of features typical of Down Syndrome on top of the individual features from their parents. This can include some degree of developmental disability, cognitive disability and other developmental delays.
Eating Disaorders: Disorders characterized by severe disturbances in eating behaviour. Anorexia Nervosa is characterized by a refusal to maintain a minimally normal body weight. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by repeated episodes of binge eating followed by inappropriate compensatory behaviours such as self-induced vomiting; use of laxatives; fasting; and/or excessive exercise to control weight.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): A series of mental and physical birth defects that can include developmental disabilities, growth deficiencies, central nervous system dysfunction, cranio-facial abnormalities and behavioral maladjustments.
Fibro Myalgia: A common, chronic condition which causes widespread pain and profound fatigue, as well as a variety of other symptoms such as: sleep disturbance; stiffness; increased headaches or facial pain; abdominal discomfort; irritable bladder; numbness or tingling; cold hands or feet; skin complaints; chest pains; concentration problems and/or memory lapses; and, depression and anxiety.
Fragile X Syndrome: After Down's Syndrome, the second most frequent genetic cause of developmental disabilities, growth deficiencies, central nervous dysfunction, cranio-facial abnormalities and behavioral maladjustments.
Hemophilia: A hereditary bleeding disorder in which there are inadequate amounts of clotting factor in the blood.
Ileitis/Colitis: Ileitis (also known as Crohn's Disease) and Ulcerative Colitis are two forms of inflammatory bowel disease; painful conditions that can strike anyone regardless of age, sex, or race.
Learning Modalities: Approaches to assessment or instruction stressing the auditory, visual, or tactile avenues for learning that are dependent upon the individual.
Learning Strategy Approaches: Instructional approaches that focus on efficient ways to learn, rather than on curriculum. Includes specific techniques for organizing, actively interacting with material, memorizing, and monitoring any content or subject.
Learning Styles: Approaches to assessment or instruction emphasizing the variations in temperament, attitude, and preferred manner of tackling a task. Typically considered are styles along the active/passive, reflective/impulsive, or verbal/spatial dimensions.
Lowe Syndrome: A hereditary condition that affects only males. It is caused by a single defective gene on the X-chromosome. Because of this defective gene, an essential enzyme is not produced which consequently causes physical and mental disabilities, and medical problems.
Macular Degeneration: Deterioration of the macula or that part of the retina which provides sharp, clear, colour vision. If the macula deteriorates, the centre of the person's field of vision blurs, and the ability to see detail is lost.
Multiple Sclerosis: One of the most common chronic progressive neurological diseases, characterized by demylination in certain portions of the nervous system. Symptoms include impaired vision, nystagmus, dysarthria, and ataxia. The onset of M.S. usually occurs between the ages of 20 and 40, and, with periods of remission, the disease may continue for as long as 25 years or more.
Muscular Dystrophy: A hereditary disease characterized by progressive weakness caused by degeneration of muscle fibres. Duchenne Type ( Pseudo hypertrophic) is one of the most common forms.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suffer intensely from recurrent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) or rituals (compulsions), which they feel they cannot control. Rituals such as hand-washing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed in hope of preventing, obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these rituals, however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety. Left untreated, obsessions and the need to perform rituals can take over a person's life. OCD is often a chronic, relapsing illness.
Panic Disorder: A serious condition that around one out of every 75 people might experience. It usually appears during the teens or early adulthood, and while the exact causes are unclear, there does seem to be a connection with major life transitions that are potentially stressful: graduating from college, getting married, having a first child, and so on. There is also some evidence for a genetic predisposition; if a family member has suffered from panic disorder, you have an increased risk of suffering from it yourself, especially during a time in your life that is particularly stressful.
Retinitis Pigmentosa: A hereditary condition resulting in degeneration of the retina; causes a narrowing of the field of vision.
Spina Bifida: A neural tube defect caused by the failure of the fetus' spine to close properly during the first month of pregnancy. In addition to physical and mobility difficulties, most individuals have some form of learning disability. Many children with Spina Bifida have hydrocephalus (excessive accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain).
Stargardt's Disease: (also known as fundus flavimaculatus and Stargardt's macular dystrophy) is the most common form of inherited juvenile macular degeneration. Inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, it is a severe form of MD that begins in late childhood, leading to legal blindness. Stargardt's disease is symptomatically similar to age-related macular degeneration, and it affects approximately one in 10,000 children.
Transition: Commonly used to refer to the change from secondary school to postsecondary programs, work, and independent living typical of young adults. Also used to describe other periods of major change such as from early childhood to school or from more specialized to mainstreamed settings.
