By Amanda Connelly

Something that really caught my attention this week was in this week’s chapter of, Sail the 7 Cs. In the chapter, Hector Minto, a Microsoft accessibility expert breaks down disability into three separate levels. The three levels of disability Minto talked about were, permanent, temporary, and situational. Before reading on, I thought these levels made no sense and I was stuck on the very first sentence of the paragraph, unable to move forward. However, once I did, Minto’s levels made perfect sense. The permanent level of disability, as made clear by the name, is a disability that is permanent and has no chance of going away. For this level, Minto showed a person who was missing an arm, an amputee, who as a result is considered permanently disabled. The temporary level focuses on disabilities that people only have to deal with for a short-period of time. For this level, Minto showed a kid in a cast. Although the kid is temporarily disabled, they will not be in the cast forever and will eventually have full movement of their arm again. The next level is situational, and this focuses on disabilities that are circumstantial. For example, for this level, Minto showed a picture of a baby being held by a parent. The baby is considered to have a situational disability because they have to depend on the parent for everything, like being held, because they are not old enough yet to do anything for themselves.

Although these levels may not be earth shattering to everyone, I myself was fascinated with these three different levels because I had never seen the category of “disability”separated like that before. I personally think that Hector Minto’s levels make perfect sense and I like how he then gives examples of times we, the readers, may have experienced challenges. Such as it being hard for a person to read because they forgot their glasses or even trouble focusing due to light and/or a lot of noise. This also includes not hearing your phone ring because you are in a loud area, and/or going to a different place where we do not know how to read and/or speak the language. I liked how Hector Minto was explaining that everyone, at least once in their lives, has experienced moments in which we need help to communicate and/or acquire new information. I think it is very important that everyone remembers that nobody is perfect and that there is no shame in receiving help when it is needed.