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Re: Functional Cognitive Disabilities

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From: Jared Smith
Date: Oct 31, 2006 9:30AM

Joshue O Connor wrote:
> But I think, maybe a subsection could be added to Pauls list around the
> area of motivation/interest, especially within the context of education?

I thought of this as well. I don't know that it would be characterized as a
disability, just like non-native language proficiency would not be a
disability, but I certainly think motivation/interest is relevant here. The
level of motivation can have a big impact upon whether web content is
accessible to an individual or not. Someone with an attention deficit, for
instance, may have less difficulty processing content if their motivation
and interest in that content is high. I think this factor can be quite
impactful for many cognitive disability types.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the disability is not relevant if the
person is just motivated enough. As an extreme example (though one I
actually see from time to time), someone that is blind can't become less
blind by "trying harder". Though I suppose one could argue that if
motivated/interested they may spend more time using a screen reader to
orient themselves with site structure, layout, and navigation (for
example), thus making that site less inaccessible to them than one that
does not provide that effort.

On the other hand, I suppose the intent of all of this is that the content
can be natively accessible (whatever that means) without requiring high
amounts of motivation or interest.

Jared