ABSTRACT
Persons with disabilities constitute a very diverse group. The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) defines persons with disabilities as anyone possessing a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, or a person on record or regarded by others as having such an impairment. Caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working are all among the major life activities whose performance may be impaired. Some of the many disabling conditions included are orthopedic, visual, speech, and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental retardation, emotional illness, specific learning disabilities, HIV disease, tuberculosis, drug addiction, and alcoholism. In addition to variations in the specific nature of their disability, persons with disabilities also vary in terms of the age of onset of their disability, the severity of their condition, the extent to which they identify with their disability status, and the degree to which their specific condition is accepted by others (Vernon & Andrews, 1989), in addition to diversity in age, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Given the amazing diversity among people grouped together because they have disabilities, it is imperative that counselors fully assess their clients and refrain from presumptive stereotyping based solely on one aspect of their client, for example, the nature of the disability. In order to present an overview of some of the conditions included, some general information regarding specific disabilities follows, but the possibility of overgeneralization must again be noted.
