When is someone with an intellectual impairment covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act?
Not everyone with an intellectual impairment is covered by the ADA. A person may meet the ADA's definition of "disability" in any one of three ways:
Substantially limiting impairment. An individual's impairment must substantially limit one or more major life activities. Major life activities are activities that an average person can perform with little or no difficulty. Examples include walking, seeing, hearing, thinking, speaking, learning, concentrating, performing manual tasks, caring for oneself, and working.
- Example : A person with an intellectual impairment is capable of living on his own, but requires frequent assistance from family, friends, and neighbors with cleaning his apartment, grocery shopping, getting to doctors' appointments, and cooking. He is unable to read at a level higher than the third grade, and so needs someone to read his mail and help him pay bills. This person is substantially limited in caring for himself and therefore has a disability under the ADA.
A person may have two or more impairments that are not substantially limiting by themselves, but that taken together substantially limit one or more major life activities. In that situation, the person has a disability.
- Example : An employee has a mild intellectual disability and a mild form of ADHD. Neither impairment, by itself, would significantly restrict any major life activity. Together, however, the two impairments substantially limit the employee's ability to concentrate, learn, and work. The employee is a person with a disability.
Record of disability. Even if an impairment does not currently substantially limit a major life activity, if the person has a past record or history of a substantially limiting intellectual disability, the person is covered under the ADA.
- Example : A person was erroneously diagnosed as having an intellectual disability that substantially limited his ability to learn when he was attending high school. The applicant has a past record or history of a disability.
Regarded as having a disability. The ADA also protects persons who do not have a substantially limiting intellectual disability, but are treated by an employer as if they do.
- Example : An applicant with a facial deformity that affects her speech applies for a position as a secretary. The applicant is denied employment because the interviewer believes she has an intellectual disability and that the condition will make her unable to communicate with clients effectively. The employer has regarded the applicant as a person with a disability.
Reprinted with permission. © CCH
When is someone with an intellectual impairment covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act? Not everyone with an intellectual impairment is covered by the ADA. A person may meet the ADA's definition of "disability" in any one of three ways: ...
When is someone with an intellectual impairment covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act?
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