Working With Disability, Not Against Disability

October is National Disability Employee Awareness Month.

People with disabilities face a higher unemployment rate, and those that are employed are often underemployed and underpaid.

Yes, disabled people may have needs that abled people do not. They may need accessibility options or accommodations. This is a form of equity and equality; it’s not about giving people something undeserved or unearned. It’s a form of inclusion, a hand up, not a handout.

Disability is a class that anyone can join at any point in their life. Disability doesn’t care about your gender, your ethnicity, your age, your sexuality, your ancestry, your religion. No one is immune from disability. In fact, nearly everyone will get a disability at some point in their lifetimes.

Unfortunately, we do a terrible job about disability education as a society, which leads people to believe that there are only a handful of disabilities. They only see the most visible, like people using a wheelchair, people using hearing aids, people speaking in sign language, or those who are blind. The truth is, disability is a spectrum.

As the image above shows, there are multiple categorizations of disability.

There are disabilities that are permanent, temporary, and situational. There are disabilities that affect the senses like touch/physical, sight, hearing, and speaking. While this image is very popular to showcase disability, it is missing cognitive, neurological, and neurodevelopmental disabilities; those differences that will affect the brain and the mind and are just as important as physical disabilites!

Examples of disabilities include:

A person can have one disability or many disabilities concurrently throughout their lives. For example, an autistic person may have a limb loss due to injury and need to wear glasses. This person has three different disabilities, all needing different accessibility accommodations. This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, but to showcase different classes of disability.

And with each disability listed, you can now imagine what accomodations people will need.

I have experience with disability — neurological, neurodevelopment, physical, sight. I know what it’s like to be discriminated against because of those disabilities and having to fight for inclusion, to fight for accommodations. And I wish more was done to include me.

First, to understand that “disabled” is not a bad word. It is a word that best describes people with different than normal or expected abilities. So, you don’t need to fear using this word. In the past, there were words that were commonly used that today we would consider to be slurs, but disabled is the preferred word. “People-first” language like “people with disabilities” may not always be appropriate as it can feel like you are ignoring the disability and we don’t want to be ignored.

Second, we need to better educate people, especially in the workplace, about disability inclusion. A lot of companies will do training on racism, sexual harassment, digital security, and/or data retention. I’ve taken these trainings yearly at nearly every job I’ve worked at. What a lot of companies miss is adding disability training to this yearly list of training.

Those in leadership positions, those creating policies and procedures within a company need to be writing those policies to be inclusive of everyone. Disabled people need to be considered for jobs, promotions, for leadership positions. They are often excluded with reasoning that is vague in order to avoid any legal blowback.

Those not in leadership positions, those at the peer level, need training on how to interact with disabled people. This needs to include understanding how implicit and explicit bias affects interactions with disabled people.

There will be times that disabled people need to ask for accommodations. The ADA requires companies to accommodate disabled people. Unfortunately, companies know the loopholes in the ADA and will find ways to not accommodate disabled people. I’ve seen this first hand. It’s not that hard to provide accommodations as most of the time, it comes down to a change in policy or procedure. This means that you need to listen to what disabled people need!

Believe people with disabilities. Ask us what we need, what skills we are strong at, what skills we are deficient at. Even if you have some experience with a disability, don’t assume you know what our life experience is like or what we need. Always ask. Consent is mandatory with disabled people. That’s the best way to be inclusive and to build empathy!

Because many companies actively work against disability, it forces disabled people to become self-employed. That’s one reason why I’ve started QA Captain — as a way to work that fits a life of disability. One of my goals with QA Captain is to be a safe place for disabled people to find purposeful and meaningful work!

Just like we have laws for accessibility in the physical world, we need accessibility in the digital world. All software, including websites, need to be accessible for the spectrum of disabilities people experience. There are laws that support this need.

In fact, my own experience with disability encouraged me to become certified in accessibility testing! I actually find it quite fun to explore and audit a website to find all the accessibility bugs lurking about.

Disability shouldn’t be a barrier, but be seen as a signal to change. It’s a call to build systems, workplaces, and software that work for more people, not fewer. When we accommodate disability, we don’t lower standards — we raise them. One of our favorite quotes is, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” So, let’s raise the tide and build with clarity, resilience, and trust.

QA Captain was born from that truth. It’s not just a business — it’s a ritual of inclusion. A way to work with disability, not against it.

So during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, ask yourself:

• Is your software accessible?
• Is your hiring process inclusive?
• Are your policies built for equity, not just compliance?
• Are you accepting and accommodating disabled people on your teams?
• Is accessibility and accommodations an afterthought?

If not, we can help. QA Captain offers accessibility testing and audits, in order to build-in inclusivity. Because accessibility isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s a reality. Inclusion isn’t optional — it’s the future.

Let’s debug exclusion. Let’s build with everyone in mind.