Attitudinal Barriers

Negative public attitudes can be a major barrier to accessibility and acceptance of persons with disabilities in the work place.

These attitudes are not necessarily negative in the sense that they are malicious or hostile.

They may be the result of negative stereotypes or assumptions that we learn from our culture.

They may be the result of discomfort around persons with disabilities.

They may result from our fear of saying or doing something offensive.

They may simply be the result of a lack of knowledge about the lives, needs, and experiences of persons with disabilities.

Such attitudes are problematic because if members of society do not think that disability access is an important issue, then buildings, programs, and educational and employment opportunities, among many other things, will not be fully accessible to persons with disabilities.

In many cases, barriers are created or maintained simply because people are unaware of their existence and the detrimental effect they have on the lives of persons with disabilities.

For example, a restaurant owner may mistakenly believe that their restaurant is accessible to wheelchair users because there are “only a couple of steps” at the entrance and fail to appreciate the need for people to be able to enter and exit safely and independently.