include physical and mental impairment both perceived and experienced by the affected individual (U.S. House, 1990).
The ADA provides that disabled persons must have equal access to identical services received by others unless any service different in kind is equally or more effective in degree. Service and physical-plant accommodations must be made to enable the disabled to receive identical treatment, unless providing those accommodations imposes an undue hardship on the institution or business involved. The whole idea of service equivalence extends to a regulation aimed at integrating the disabled with, not segregating them from, other users, which the law says could foster the very negative or fearful attitudes or stereotypes that it intends to eliminate. Furthermore, institutions that cannot demonstrate undue hardship associated with providing extra services or facilities are obligated to incur the costs of providing them. Budget reorganizations are implicated in ADA compliance by institutions, whether public or private. Although full implementation of compliance protocols may take place in stages (Weston, 1994), the law expects institutions and businesses to review and possibly move their budgetary funds not associated with ADA mandates to ADA compliance requirements.
US Census Bureau figures for the most recent year available indicate that about 20% of the American population fits into the disabled category. Within that category, those who are disabled by sight and hearing appear to constitute the largest number of disabled persons who are employed. This is shown by Table 1 (USCB, 2000):
TABLE 1. DATA ON DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT: 1991/92, 1993/94, 1994/95, AND 1997
(From the Survey of Income and Program Participation)
The fact that those with hearing and/or seeing disabilities are more proportionately employed than other disabled groups is suggested by the fact that of those who have difficulty walking, 33.5% are...