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'Disability': longer-term variations

Likelihood of recurrence
Past disability

The "2006 Guidance" means the Guidance on matters to be taken into account in determining questions relating to the definition of disability which took effect from 1st May 2006, on the DRC's 'Guidance' web page.
For discrimination which occured before 1st May 2006, see my previous web page.
Broadly speaking, an impairment is treated as long-term (and so potentially within the Act) if it lasts or is likely to last at least twelve months (Schedule 1 para 2(1) #). An adult stammer will practically always meet this test.

In looking at periods when a stammer is much improved due to therapy or speech techniques, it should first always be remembered that the stammer might be treated as continuing as if the help weren't here, so that the person is still "disabled" and the following is irrelevant (see the section on "Therapy...").

What is dealt with in the following are two further grounds on which a person whose current stammer (if any) does not have a substantial adverse effect may argue he still has a disability - namely

Likelihood of re-occurrence

Where an impairment ceases to have a substantial adverse effect, it is treated as continuing to have that effect if the effect is likely to reoccur (Schedule 1 para 2(2) #). The test is whether the re-occurrence is more probable than not (2006 Guidance para C2).

Likelihood of relapse after course?

One example where this could apply is where a significant stammer pretty much disappears because of a recent course. If the substantial (ie more than minor or trivial) effect is more likely than not to reoccur (not necessarily permanently), the person is still treated as disabled. This is a very real possibility as relapse after treatment is a significant issue for people who stammer.

Natural fluctuation of stammer

The provision is also likely to apply to where a stammer just vairies over time. A person may have become substantially fluent after having had a more severe stammer and can only now expect the occasional difficult patch. It seems that the stammer is treated as continuing in its more severe state provided it is more probable that not that the person will occasionally - possibly even rarely - have occasions when the stammer has the required substantial (ie more than minor or trivial) effect on the ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

It is not clear whether likely re-occurrences could be single occasions or would need to be a bit more protracted. Possibly a comparison with epilepsy implies that single occasions can be enough.

Past disability

Most of the DDA's protection extends to past disabilities (section 2 #). This provision is there partly because it may be difficult to know whether a past disability will reoccur.

Thus a stammer can be protected as a past disability if its effects on normal day-to-day activities were substantial but are no longer (para C10 of 2006 Guidance). It is not clear that this helps if the discrimination is on the basis of the current stammer rather than having had one in the past - though hopefully in this case the stammer will be treated as a present 'disability'.

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Last updated 10th June, 2006