Your comments about working in the Deaf community make a very good point -- people who've been born with certain disabilities, or acquired them very early, don't necessarily perceive them as "disabling" the way that they would if they had lost those particular abilities later in life.

So much hinges on how people with disabilities are treated and regarded by others, and if they're in a community of people who are in the same situation (like the deaf community), then naturally they develop their own culture and their own comfort zones and would feel little or no need to be pitied by others outside that community. It would be interesting to see more of this represented in fiction as well. Thanks for your comment.