Washington State Department of Services for the Blind

Glossary of Commonly Used Terms*

Listed below are commonly used terms in the employment of persons with disabilities.

Accessible: Easy to approach, enter, operate, participate in, and/or use safely and with dignity by a person with a disability (i.e., site, facility, work environment, service, or program).

Affirmative Action: Positive action to accomplish the purposes of a program which is designed to increase the employment opportunities of certain groups, which may involve goals, timetables, or specifically outlined steps to be undertaken to assure that objectives are reached. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not mandate affirmative action for persons with disabilities, but does require that covered entities ensure nondiscrimination. Title 5, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act does require that affirmative action be taken in employment considerations of persons with disabilities by federal contractors.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): a comprehensive Civil Rights law that makes it unlawful to discriminate in private sector employment against a qualified individual with a disability. The ADA also outlaws discrimination against individuals with disabilities in state and local government services and employment, public accommodations, transportation, and telecommunication. The law was enacted in July of 1990. The private sector employment provisions (Title I) became effective for employers with 25 or more employees on July 26, 1992, and on July 26, 1994, for employers of 15 or more employees. The public sector employment provisions (Title II) became effective on January 26, 1992.

Auxiliary Aids and Services: Devices or services that accommodate a functional limitation of a person with a communication disability. The term includes qualified interpreters and communication devices for persons who are deaf or persons who are hard of hearing; qualified readers, taped texts, Braille or other devices for persons with visual impairments; adaptive equipment or similar services and actions for persons with other communication disabilities.

Essential Job Functions: The fundamental job duties of the employment position that the individual with a disability holds or desires. The term essential functions does not include marginal functions of the position.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Nondiscrimination in hiring, firing, compensation, promotion, recruitment, training, and other terms and conditions of employment regardless of race, color, sex, age, religion, national origin or disability.

Individual with a Disability: A person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of that person’s major life activities, has a record of such impairment, or who is regarded as having such an impairment.

Major Life Activity: Basic activities that the average person in the general population can perform with little or no difficulty, including caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working.

Qualified Individual with a Disability: An individual with a disability who satisfies the requisite skill, experience, education, and other job-related requirements of the employment position such individual holds or desires, and who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of such position.

Readily Achievable: Easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense. In determining whether an action is readily achievable, factors to be considered include nature and cost of the action, overall financial resources and the effect on expenses and resources, legitimate safety requirements, impact on the operation of a site, and, if applicable, overall financial resources, size, and type of operation of any parent corporation or entity.

Reasonable Accommodation: (1) Modification or adjustment to a job application process that enable a qualified applicant with a disability to be considered for the position such qualified applicant desires; or (2) modifications or adjustments to the work environment, or to the manner or circumstances under which the position held or desired is customarily performed, that enables qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of that position; or (3) modifications or adjustments that enable a covered entity’s employee with a disability to enjoy equal benefits and privileges of employment as are enjoyed by its other similarly situated employees without disabilities.

Title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973: Title of the law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a disability by the federal government, federal contractors, by recipients of federal financial assistance, and in federally conducted programs and activities.

Undue Hardship: With respect to the provision of an accommodation, significant difficulty or expense incurred by a covered entity, when considered in light of certain factors. These factors include the nature and cost of the accommodation in relationship to the size, resources, nature, and structure of the employer’s operation. Where the facility making the accommodation is part of a larger entity, the structure and overall resources of the larger organization would be considered, as well as the financial and administrative relationship of the facility to the larger organization.

Vocational Rehabilitation: Programs designed to assist individuals with disabilities to enter or re-enter gainful employment.

*Provided by the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, 1994.