Tips for Producing a Functional Disability Statement

Often, the most difficult hurdle an interviewee with a visual impairment faces is addressing the misconceptions an interviewer has regarding disability. Functional disability statements allow individuals with disabilities to address concerns or issues that prospective employers have related to hiring them.

The most important components of a functional disability statement are:

• Focus on your positive attributes,
• Use no medical jargon,
• Emphasize how you can do the job using compensatory skills,
• Address common misconceptions, and
• Answer any questions you think the employer may hesitate to ask you.

Many employers express concerns about hiring people who are blind or have low vision. Their most common concerns are related to safety issues, travel or mobility considerations, access to print materials, and meeting production quotas (both from a quality and quantity perspective).

Although many of the questions employers would like to ask they may be hesitant to ask due to legal constraints, interviewees can allay employers' concerns in a disability statement.

The functional disability statement focuses first and foremost on an applicant's abilities: what skills or alternative techniques an individual with a disability uses to do a job in ways that a typical, nondisabled person might not use. For example, the typical worker might access notes from an employer visually, whereas a blind worker might access the same kind of information by listening to voicemail or reading electronic messages.

Employers may not know how a prospective employee with a disability uses assistive technology or specialized tools and equipment. Therefore, an interviewee may want to describe tools used for notetaking such as electronic notetaking devices, slate and stylus, optical devices with paper and pen, tape recorders, or other tools.

In addition to describing such tools, an applicant may want to bring portable devices to the interview or pictures of nonportable tools to engage the prospective employer in a "show and tell" session.

Although it is important in a disability statement to give the employer a sense of what the disability is, it is best to eliminate any medical jargon. Medical jargon tends to confuse or frighten individuals without a background in medicine, education, or rehabilitation.

In a functional disability statement, an applicant with a disability defines his or her disability for a prospective employer—this approach helps the interviewer understand the interviewee's abilities and limitations objectively.

For example, a person with low vision needs to help an employer understand what he or she can see. Ideally, an interviewee can describe what he or she sees in the environment where the interview is taking place—using furnishings and objects as examples of what can been seen. For instance, "I can see the clock on the wall behind you, but I can't see the hands or read the individual numbers."

Related Articles

• Getting Hired
• Deciding When to Disclose Your Disability
• Personal Data Sheets and Resumes--What You Need to Know
• Tips on Negotiating Assistance
• Interviewing Tips
• Sample Resume
• Sample Personal Data Sheet

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