What Constitutes a Special Need?

Back in the 1980's I volunteered for the Garry Taylor Center, a facility that housed teens and young adults with intellectual challenges like autism and Down's syndrome. The facility was built so the clients could live in small, family-like units. Staff would plan activities like going grocery shopping and preparing a meal in the center's kitchen. once in a while there was even an extra special event like going to Belmont Park, the now defunct Montreal amusement park that had a single admission pass back when LaRonde was still fussing with several denominations of tickets for the rides.

I remember the staff piling a bunch of us into the center's station wagon for these outings. It was an old car with a handicapped vignette in the back window. The first time I saw it, I wondered if there were clients at the center who were in wheelchairs. The special parking spaces, I thought, ought to go to people who had limited mobility. Our clients may have been challenged, but there was nothing wrong with their legs. They could walk from the parking lot to the stores the same as anyone else.

Years later I came to understand that people can have hidden disabilities. A person's legs may work just fine, for example, but they could have a lung condition that makes it next to impossible for them to get from the far end of the parking lot to the stores in a reasonable period of time. A parent may also need a disability vignette for their car because they have an autistic child who is in fugue and doesn't recognize the danger of walking in traffic. It is far safer for that child when the parent parks close to the entrance, and the child is taken quickly inside away from the traffic.

What constitutes a special need, then? My child may have a diagnosis and a disability code recognized by the school for purposes of procuring special services, but that may not be enough to get him adapted transport from the city, or to qualify for a monthly disability benefit cheque.

Then there are people who may be officially considered disabled, but who don't self-identify that way. A person with a learning difference like dyslexia, or a chronic medical condition such as diabetes may be considered disabled, but not welcome the label or the special treatment. In a recent episode of Degrassi, Adam is given an escort to his classes and told he must use the special needs bathroom, because the discovery by other students that he is transgendered has created a furor and his safety is compromised. He has already been attacked by two other students, and although they've been suspended from school there is a possibility someone else will seek to harm Adam.

Adam doesn't much care for being labelled handicapped, but Mr. Simpson reiterates that he has special needs. And indeed, it seems to me that he is disabled not because he is transgendered, but because of how the other students treat him. The World Health Organization discusses the concept of disability:

Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.

Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. (emphasis mine)

At least some part of disability is how the person is perceived and treated by the society in which she lives, and how difficult it is for him to participate in the same activities as the rest of us. Certainly a bias that causes a person to be treated differently or an obstacle to the individual accessing everyday services such as medical care, education or workplace, or leisure activities, does create a special need - even if there wasn't much of one before.