Barriers Towards Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities

There are many types of disabilities, some are visible while others are invisible. These disabilities are never an issue as they justify human diversity. The biggest issues are barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from being included in their communities.


Attitudinal barrier: This includes a negative perception of disability like discrimination, stigma and stereotypes. This barriers have misconceptions that tend to focus on inabilities instead of abilities for instance, when meeting a person with disability for the first time and you decide to ask "What happened to you?" that's an instant attitudinal barrier.
The concept of seeing disability as physical is also an attitudinal barrier that may leave out people with learning disabilities among others.




Physical barriers: These barriers come as a result of inaccessible infrastructure that hinder independence and mobility of persons with disabilities. This issue can be resolved by universal design in the architectural systems.

Communication barriers: These are obstacles towards effective communication and may include lack of easy read materials for persons with intellectual disabilities, lack of large print for people with visual impairments, lack of audio or braille material, lack of sign language interpreters for persons with hearing impairments and the use of disability unfriendly language.





Institutional barriers: These are obstacles within institutions these includes; the do's, don'ts, policies, bi-
laws and laws that prevent persons with disabilities from being included in their communities.

A barrier free society starts with you and me. Let's work towards it together.

Cheers!