Understanding Requirements and Unmet Needs for Accommodations for Non-Senior Adults with Disabilities through a Social-Cultural Lens

This paper will provide an overview of how requirements and unmet needs for disability-related aids, devices and human supports changed between 2001 and 2006 using results from Statistics Canada’s Participation and Activity Limitations Surveys. It will illustrate the usefulness of applying a social/cultural model of disability in developing our understanding as to why these changes have taken place. In particular it will show strong relationships between:

· Advances in the inclusion of people with disabilities and related changes in both requirements and unmet need. For example, the period saw tightening of the labour market and a commensurate shift of a significant number of non-senior adults with disabilities into employment. Paralleling this shift were increases in both the needs and unmet requirements for work-related accommodations.

· Acceptance of innovations in design and technology and changes in perceptions of both requirements and unmet needs. For example, there had been marked increases in both the use and unmet need for computer-based supports for people with learning/developmental impairments.

The paper will also illustrate the mitigating effects of socio-demographic changes in the population of people with disabilities on requirements and unmet needs. Thus evidence from PALS indicates that increasing access to educational opportunities has translated into significant increases in levels of educational attainment and employment levels among younger people with disabilities, which in turn have affected accommodation requirements. At the same time, there is evidence that considerable increases in age-related impairments commensurate with our graying population have resulted in significant increases in the need for accommodation and acceptance of those adapting to their impairments through their use.

Aron Spector is currently Senior Research Officer working on Disability Issues at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) where he works on disability-related research on program and policy issues. His work primarily focuses on labour market; access to aids, devices and supports; and income adequacy issues. Prior to coming to HRSDC in 1998, he worked at the Canadian Transport Agency, taught at Queen’s University and was a consultant in the non-profit housing area. He is a long-time volunteer in the non-profit housing sector, currently on the board of a major Ottawa housing provider, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation. He is author of numerous reports and published articles regarding disability-related labour market and social policy. He holds a PhD, earned in 1977, from the Ohio State University.