Workshop on Improving Disability Data for Policy Use
23-26 September 2003, Bangkok, Thailand

Annexure I  

Concepts & Definitions

2.1  As discussed, the surveys of physically handicapped/disabled persons conducted by the NSSO in its various rounds can be divided into two broad-groups -

§         Early efforts made in the 15th, 16th, 24th and 28th rounds of NSS, of which the efforts of 15th and 16th rounds were exploratory in nature and

§         Renewed efforts made in the NSS 36th and 47th rounds. 

2.2   The definitions of different types of physically handicapped/disabled persons adopted in the early surveys of 24th and 28th rounds and that in the recent surveys of 36th and 47th rounds are given below:

 Disability 

 No attempt was made to define disability as such during the early efforts of the NSS.  In the renewed efforts, disability was defined as “restrictions or lack of abilities to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being”.  This was characterised by deficiencies in customarily expected activity performance and behaviours.  The disability may arise as a direct consequence of any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function or as a response (particularly psychological) by an individual to a physical and sensory loss or abnormality.  The question of durability or otherwise was not considered.  However, disability excluded the cases of morbidity, which covered illness/injury of recent origin not resulting loss of ability to see, hear, speak or move with or without the help of aids.  Persons having any of the disabilities, namely, visual, communication (hearing, speech or both) and locomotor, were considered physically disabled persons.

I.                    Blind/Visual disability 

a)       Blind was defined in the NSS 28th round as “a person who cannot see for all practical purpose, being blind in both the eyes”.  Persons with failing eye-sight due to old age or those who could see at day time but not at night or those who could see with spectacles irrespective of whether he/she was using spectacles or not, were not treated as blind.  Although the definition provided in the instruction manual of the 24th round was less elaborate, it was essentially the same as that of the 28th round;

b)       In comparison, a visually disabled person was identified in the recent surveys (NSS 36th and 47th round) on the basis of more clear and precise definition.  A person who did not have any light perception - both eyes taken together - or a person who had light perception but could not count fingers of a hand (with spectacles/contact lenses if he/she used spectacles/contact lenses) from a distance of 3 metres (or 10 feet) in good day light with both eyes open - was considered as visually disabled in these rounds.

I.                    Deaf/Hearing Disabilities

a)       A person who could not hear for all practical purposes, being deaf in both the ears was treated as deaf in the NSS 24th and 28th rounds.   Persons able to hear by using hearing aids were considered deaf in 24th round.   However, such persons were treated as ‘not deaf’ in the 28th round;

b)       More elaborate descriptions were provided in the recent surveys of NSS 36th and 47th rounds to identify persons with hearing disability.   Hearing disability was judged taking into consideration the disability of the better ear.  Thus, if one ear of a person was normal and the other ear had total hearing loss, the person was considered as having normal ability in hearing.  Unlike the earlier surveys, no attempt was made in the recent rounds to define deafness as such.   Instead, hearing disability was measured with wider carriage in terms of a person’s inability to hear properly.  However, hearing disability was classified into three groups namely, profound, severe and moderate.  A person was treated as having profound hearing disability if he/she could not hear at all or could hear only loud sounds, such as a thunder.  A person who could hear only shouted words or could hear only when the speaker was sitting in the front, was treated as having severe hearing disability.  A person was treated as having moderate hearing disability if his/her disability was neither profound nor severe.  Such a person would usually ask to repeat the words that are spoken or would like to see the face of the speaker or would feel difficulty in conducting conversation.

II.                 Dumb/Speech Disability  

a)       A ‘Dumb’ was briefly described in the 24th and 28th rounds as a person who could not talk;

b)       In contrast, the coverage of speech disability was much wider in the recent rounds.  Speech disability was referred to as a person’s inability to speak properly;

c)       Speech of a person was judged to be disordered if the person’s speech was not understood by the listener, drew attention to the manner in which he spoke than to the meaning, and was aesthetically unpleasant.   Persons with speech disability included those who could not speak, could speak only with limited words or those with loss of voice.  It also included those having speech but with defects in speech, such as, stammering, nasal voice, hoarse and discordant voice, articulation defects, etc.  Provision was, however, kept in the schedule to classify persons under different types of speech disability.

III.              Lame/Crippled/Locomotor disability

a)       A person who was deformed in either or both of the legs and was disabled thereby, was considered as lame in the earlier surveys.  A person who was found to limp but otherwise did not require any external aid irrespective of whether he/she could afford to have an external aid or not was not treated as lame, but if the person required or was using crutches, he/she was considered as lame;

b)       In the 16th, 24th and 28th rounds, ‘crippled’ was identified as a separate category of physically handicapped persons.  A person who was deformed in any part of the body other than legs and was disabled thereby, was considered  as crippled in those rounds;

c)       In the surveys of recent rounds, the ‘crippled’ was not defined separately but was included among persons having locomotor disability.  In the recent surveys, locomotor disability was defined as loss or lack of normal ability of an individual to execute distinctive activities associated with moving himself and/or objects from one place to another. Persons with loss or absence or incapacity of whole or part of a hand or leg or both due to amputation, paralysis, deformity and dysfunction of joints and persons with physical deformities in the body (other than limbs) which affected normal movement such as, hunch back, deformed spine etc. were treated as having locomotor disabilities.  Dwarfs and persons with stiff-neck of permanent nature who generally did not have difficulty in the normal movement of body and limbs were also included under this category.

  Mentally affected persons

a)       Of the early surveys, information in respect of mentally affected persons was collected only in the NSS 28th round.  A person, who is mentally disordered as considered by the informant, whether or not under psychiatric treatment, was considered as a mentally affected person.

b)       No attempt was made in the recent rounds to collect information in respect of mentally affected persons as such.  It was felt by the members of the Working Group (WG) consisting of experts in the relevant medical discipline that it was difficult to formulate a feasible and practical definition of mentally affected persons for collecting information through a household survey by non-medical persons, like the NSS investigators.  Instead, the WG recommended to collect information on behavioral pattern and developmental milestones for all the children aged 5-14 years regardless of whether they were physically disabled, to examine the extent and prevalence of delayed mental development amongst the children.

c)       In 58^th  Round of NSS the latest one also covered mental disability. The definition   of Mental Disability adopted in this survey is as follows:

Mental Disability:  Persons who have difficulty in understanding routine instructions, who do not carry out their activities  like others of similar age or exhibit  behavior like talking to self laughing/crying, staring violence, fear and suspicion without reason would be considered as mentally disabled for the purpose of the survey.  The “activities like others of similar age” will include   activities of communication (speech), self-care (cleaning of teeth, wearing clothes taking bath, taking food, personal hygiene, etc.) home living (doing some household chores) and social skills.

2.3  It is evident from the foregoing discussions that while the concepts and definitions used in the early surveys of 24th and 28th rounds were more or less same, they differ widely from those adopted in the recent rounds.  Again, the definitions provided in the early rounds are, generally, very brief but not necessarily very precise and based on objective criteria.  In those rounds, the physically handicapped persons were enumerated either at the stage of household listing or collecting information on other topics.  Consequently, there was little scope of deep probing.  As a result, the data were comparatively less refined.  On the other hand, the concepts and definitions adopted in the NSS 36^th and 47^th rounds are based on the objective criteria formulated on the advice of the medical experts, keeping in view the feasibility and practicability aspects of collecting information by the non-medical persons, and the estimates more reliable. 

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

FIFTY-EIGHTH ROUND: JULY-DECEMBER 2002

SCHEDULE 26 : SURVEY OF DISABLED PERSONS

*tick mark (Ö ) may be put in the appropriate place.

CODES FOR BLOCK 3

item 2: social group: scheduled tribe – 1, scheduled caste – 2, other backward class – 3, others – 9

item 4: general education of the principal earner: not literate – 01, literate without formal schooling – 02, literate but below primary – 03, primary – 04, middle – 05, secondary – 06, higher secondary – 07, diploma / certificate course – 08, graduate – 10, post graduate and above – 11

CODES FOR BLOCK  4