Spina Bifida Chapter 1 Analysis

Severe disability as mentioned in chapter 1 can refers to a person that is not able to act in one or more area that affects the person daily living. As stated in chapter 1 there are “traditional categories” of a person that has severe disability and are described as follows; “moderate, severe, or profound intellectual disability, some who have autism spectrum disorder, and those who have multiple physical or sensory disabilities as well as intellectual disabilities” (pg.3). In other words, we need to keep in mind that when hearing the word severe disability in a person, it cannot be assumed that every person is the same. As mentioned before, there are many categories under severe disability such as intellectual disabilities which they are

In the chapter, one of the physical disabilities that were mentioned was spina bifida, which means as indicated in the book a birth defect in which the spine does not form normally. The chapter goes into more details about what comes from having spina bifida, but one thing that it mentioned was that this disorder “may also occur without adversely affecting cognitive development” (pg. 20). Also a person that has cerebral palsy sometimes the only problem that they might have is physical functioning. But it doesn’t imply that they also have a cognitive disability. Every person might be categorized or labeled with the same disability, but as the book mentioned there is different levels of disabilities and not because a person has cerebral palsy and have difficulty in problem solving, it will mean that another person with cerebral palsy will have the same problem. Also there have been cases where a person due to an accident becomes severely physically disable but on the cognitive side they are fine. I don’t know if I am able to give this example and correct me if I wrong, if it don’t have to do anything in this circumstance. But an example I can give is Christopher Reeve the actor who played Superman. He became paralyzed and wasn’t able to breathe without the help of a respirator. Anyone who sees him might of think that he also had cognitive disability, but he