According to the study made by Kaye, Jans and Jones (2011), decisions that are

made by employers are critical to improving employment rates among working-age

adults with disabilities. During the more than two decades since the Americans with

Disabilities Act (ADA) was first proposed in the late 1980s, many researchers have

surveyed employers about their attitudes toward hiring and retaining workers with

disabilities and their experiences with accommodating such workers. The picture that

has emerged is generally rather rosy, reflecting “a veneer of employer acceptance of

workers with disabilities”. For example, two early studies of Fortune 500 corporations

indicated favorable attitudes toward hiring people with intellectual and other significant

disabilities, benefitting both the worker and the employer, and positive views of the job

performance of workers with disabilities.

A similar picture emerges when employers are asked about their experiences

with accommodating workers with disabilities. In a 1998–1999 survey of private

businesses and Federal agencies, a majority of human resource professionals from

both types of organizations reported that they had accommodated workers with

disabilities in each of the following ways: made their facilities more accessible, created

flexible human resources policies, restructured jobs, modified the work environment,

provided written job instructions, provided transportation accommodations, and modified

equipment.

Political scientists have displayed relatively little interest in research on disability

(Hahn, 2007)

Participation and Social Challenges of PWDS

 According to Swaine and Labbé (2014), many persons with disabilities face daily

challenges that hinder social participation and prevent them from accomplishing

common daily activities such as feeding themselves, moving around, communicating

and fulfilling social roles (i.e., work, leisure). Social participation assumes individuals

with disabilities live and interact with their family and their community, but sometimes

this is not always possible. Adaptations within the physical and social environment are

necessary to facilitate social participation and inclusion of individuals with disabilities.

However, the design of buildings and public spaces tends to focus on the ‘average’

person which may conflict with the reality of the diversity inherent in actual users, who

tend to have a much wider range of abilities, body shapes and sizes and, thus create

environments that are not inclusive for all (Afacan, 2012).

Goodley (2014) stated that disabled people are more likely to be victims of rape

and violence, less likely to receive legal protection, more likely to be excluded from

mass education and underrepresented politically, and more reliant upon state benefits

and/or charity. People with impairments are ignored, pitied, patronized, objectified,

hated, mocked and fetished. Then he affirmed that disabled adults people don’t receive

rightful or equitable access to human, economic and social capital if they are compared

to the non-disabled persons.

Lamoureux, Hassell, and Keeffe (2004) studied the determinants of

participation in activities of daily living by people with impaired vision. The study noted

that the areas of greatest restriction of participation were those associated with reading,

outdoor mobility, participation in leisure activities, and shopping. The study found that

distance visual acuity, the thing which is tested to understand the degree of vision loss;
physical health; and mental health explain a large part of the variation in the

participation of people with impaired vision in daily living activities. Therefore,

interventions aimed at improving the lives of the visually impaired may include

approaches to improve not just in terms of vision-related rehabilitation but also mental

and physical health.