10th of October is World mental health day and I wanted to dedicate this post to it. I believe that digital accessibility also has a lot to do with supporting mental health. There are some parts of WCAG that try to set good practices also for people with neurodiversities. Neurodiversity can often have impact on mental health as well. Sometimes are neurodivergent conditions even misdiagnosed as mental health conditions (opens in new window). So mental health is already kind of a part of WCAG in my opinion.
World Health Organization (WHO) states that the objective with World Mental Health Day (opens in new window) is “to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health”. They try to focus on all stakeholders working on mental health issues but I think that this important subject should get even more attention and focus beyond stakeholders alone. Digital production, web, mobile, social media and so on are becoming a large part of our life, therefore they also have to take into account the end-users and also authors mental health.
Accessibility covers much more than just how to make things work for people with physical disabilities and I have a feeling that new versions of WCAG will try to cover much more best practices on the neurodiversity spectrum as well. So – accessibility is not only for people with physical disabilities but also for all of us – as we all are potentially neurodivergent.
Neurodiversity and mental health
First things first – what is neurodiversity?
Neurodiversity refers to variation in the human brain regarding sociability, learning, attention, mood and other mental functions in a non-pathological sense.
Wikipedia on neurodiversity (opens in new window).
So the diversity of the behavior of brain that make some of us think, learn, behave and perceive the world in a different way. In history some of neurodivergencies got mistaken for mental health issues and people even tried to “cure” them. This has been a big mistake and we should be aware of the fact that neurodivergent does not mean directly mentally ill and that often it can not be treated. I am very far from being an expert on this subject but we should inform us more on the differences and do even more on the acceptance and awareness of this fact. We as a race are very similar but at the same time also very different. But if we could also compare our brains in a way we would be able to know that our differences “on the inside” are even larger than they are “on the outside”. Twins may look exactly the same but their brains can be totally different at the same time would be my naive understanding. Before I get too philosophical I will just add – we need more awareness about ourselves and people around us and when we will understand we will also respect.
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides examples of cognitive, learning and neurological disabilities that also include mental health disabilities (opens in new window);
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (formerly “attention deficit disorder (ADD)”) – involves difficulty focusing on a single task, focusing for longer periods, or being easily distracted.
- Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (includes “autism,” “Asperger syndrome,” and “pervasive developmental disorder” (PDD)) – involves impairments of social communication and interaction abilities, and sometimes restricted habits and interests.
- Intellectual disabilities (sometimes called “learning disabilities” in Europe and some other countries, and “developmental disabilities” in other regions) – involves impairments of intelligence, learning more slowly, or difficulty understanding complex concepts. Down syndrome is one among many different causes of intellectual disabilities.
- Learning disabilities – is a functional term rather than a medical condition, and is not uniformly defined. In Europe and some other countries, it refers to intellectual disabilities, while in Australia, Canada, the U.S., and some other countries it refers to perceptual disabilities.
- Mental health disabilities – includes anxiety, delirium, depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, and many other disorders. These conditions may cause difficulty focusing on information, processing information, or understanding it. In particular medication for these disorders may have side effects including blurred vision, hand tremors, and other impairments.
- Memory impairments – involves limited short-term memory, missing long-term memory, or limited ability to recall language. Dementia is one among many different causes of memory impairments.
- Multiple sclerosis – causes damage to nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and can affect auditory, cognitive, physical, or visual abilities, in particular during relapses.
- Neurodiversity – is a societal rather than medical term to describe the natural diversity in neurocognitive functioning, like gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability.
- Perceptual disabilities (sometimes called “learning disabilities” in Australia, Canada, the U.S., and some other countries) – involves difficulty processing auditory, tactile, visual, or other sensory information. This can impact reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), processing numbers (dyscalculia), or spatial and temporal orientation.
- Seizure disorders – includes different types of epilepsy and migraines, which may be in reaction to visual flickering or audio signals at certain frequencies or patterns.
We can therefore say that accessibility has actually a lot to do with both mental health and neurodiversity. Making digital products that respect differences among us on every level, not only physical but also mental will be in my opinion even more important on the future.
Making understandable and perceivable content helps everybody. It may even help with our mental health – difficult to say that it can improve it, but at least we should do our best to not introduce even more problems for people.
