Talk:Invisible disability

Wiki Education assignment: Disability, Communication and Visual Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2023 and 12 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wikifaedia (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Gkrolewski (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Perceived disability

I have just removed this from the article:

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The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 has been amended several times such that the definition of "handicapped" includes the statement, "any person who... (C) is regarded as having such an impairment".

This particular defining point of "handicapped" puts the assessment of impairment in the hands of observers who may or may not regard others as having an impairment. For people with disabilities, invisible or not, this creates a space for discriminatory practices which stem from the observer's perception of who is disabled and who is not.

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I've removed this because the second paragraph leads me to believe that whoever added this (which hopefully wasn't me...  ;-) didn't quite understand it. This US law covers people with actual disabilities and people with perceived disabilities. The inclusion of non-disabled people who are incorrectly perceived to have a disability does not take anything away from people with invisible disabilities. Including more people does not "puts the assessment of impairment in the hands of observers" or "create a space for discriminatory practices". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

References

Wiki Education assignment: Disability, Justice and Advocacy

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2025 and 19 November 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sgrass2007, Chamber132 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Sluba, Victorriaaaa, Ssavian.

— Assignment last updated by Amora193 (talk) 04:42, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

1 in 5, 1 in 10

I'm just a passerby, but I noticed this and I thought I should mention it. I am not an editor and have no current wish to be one.

Early in the article, it mentions that 1 in 5 Americans suffered mental illness, which is counted as an invisible disability. In the next paragraph or so, it is also mentioned that 1 in 10 Americans suffer from invisible disabilities. Wouldn't the former fact impact the latter? If 1 in 5 Americans suffered mental illness, then wouldn't AT LEAST 1 in 5 Americans suffer from invisible disabilities?

I don't know. Maybe I've got this all wrong. I just thought I'd bring it up.

Cheers! ~2026-15367-41 (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I've been thinking about your interesting question. I don't think that having a mental illness (or any other medical condition) necessarily rises to the level of being disabled. Consequently, it would be possible to have 20% of people have a medical condition, and only 10% of them be disabled.

But to know whether that's what's going on in this particular scenario, we'd have to look at the sources, or find some better ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2026 (UTC)