Do Assistive Products Enhance or Equalize Opportunities? A Comparison of Capability across Persons with Impairments Using and Not Using Assistive Products and Persons without Impairments in Bangladesh

Abstract

Aiming to compare capability across persons with impairments using and not using assistive products and persons without impairments in Bangladesh for 16 different functionings, we contrast two sets of self-reported cross-sectional data from eight districts of Bangladesh: (i) data from persons with hearing impairment not using hearing aids, persons with hearing impairment using hearing aids and persons without impairments (N = 572); and (ii) data from persons with ambulatory impairment not using manual wheelchairs, persons with ambulatory impairment using manual wheelchairs and persons without impairments (N = 598). Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to compare levels of capability across the three groups in each data set. Results showed that, for all functionings in both data sets, the levels of capability were statistically significantly highest for persons without impairments. Compared to persons with hearing impairment not using hearing aids, persons with hearing impairment using hearing aids scored higher in all functionings, with statistical significance at the .05 level for 12 of them. Persons with ambulatory impairment using manual wheelchairs scored higher than persons with ambulatory impairment not using manual wheelchairs for 11 of the functionings, but none of the comparisons between the two groups were significant at the .05 level. Assistive products—hearing aids more than manual wheelchairs—enhance capabilities but do not fully equalize opportunities between people with and without impairments.