Deafness - We now have to refer to a hearing impairment as 'Deaf and Hard of Hearing' to keep those Politically Correct fools happy. Mind you, verbally you can say call to a deaf person to whatever you wish - They aren't going to hear you are they?. Be warned though as some people can have a bit of hearing and with an hearing aid they can pick up most things. Deaf people can use sign language to communicate and lip reading, a qualified skill so they can understand what's going on in the Hollyoaks Sunday morning Omnibus with that annoying sign interrupter in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. Deaf people can enjoy music by feeling vibrations and there's even a website to promote deaf raves. There's three types of hearing loss, neural/sensorineural, conductive or both. The first is when the inner ear or the auditory brainstem is damaged. Conductive is when the outer ear is damaged. Two more little deaf facts for you, Pre-lingual impairment is when somebody is affected at birth and Post-lingual deafness creeps in around the age of 6. Pre-lingual sufferers will probably have a speech impediment as they have never been able to hear words pronounced properly. WE SAID PRE - LINGUAL SUFFERERS WILL PROBABLY HAVE A SPEECH......Oh forget it!

Diabetes - This condition occurs when somebody has too much glucose in their body and doesn't know what to do with it. Glucose is made after digested carbohydrate containing food and drink and also from the liver. Another name for this is Hypoglycemia. Carbohydrate can be found in loads of food products such as bread, potatoes, fruit and other sweet stuff. The glucose enters the cells to make them work this journey is helped by insulin. So as you can appreciate, insulin is pretty damn important. Trouble is, Type 1 of Diabetes means that the body can't produce any insulin, luckily it the rarest out of the two types and only affects 5 - 15% of people who are diabetic. The common symptom is Type 2 which affects 2.5 million people in the UK and half a million more who have no idea they are infected. Type 2 is where the body makes a bit of insulin, but not enough to function properly. Both types can be treated, Type 1 by injections and Type 2 sometimes with pills, in both cases changes need to be made to the persons diet and a healthier way of living.

Down syndrome - Our body has 23 types of chromosomes which include a pair of Chromosome 21 (the smallest). People with Down Syndrome have an extra Chromosome 21. A chromosome is a small structure found inside our cells and are made up of genes which control everything to do with our bodies from our eye colour to our type of sex. Having more than two Chromosome 21's messes around with the brain which can cause severe learning difficulties. Half of the down syndrome babies which are born have heart defects, which will need surgery. They are quite prone to picking up leukemia and cancer and have difficulty walking and talking. Body defects will make their eyes slant and a flattened face bearing a resemblance to Ant Mcpharlin from Ant & Dec. Life expectancy isn't great for them either.

Dyslecia, Dislectica, Desletix - Dyslexia! - People with dyslexia have great difficulty understanding written information. They can't spell properly, read and writing. They have problems with how words and letters sound and hate spelling tests at school! Dyslexia is a learning difficulty, although it doesn't effect thier intelligence. Apperently between 5%-10% of people living in the UK are dyslextic - some of them are even English! Some people think they have problems writing and believe they could be dyslextic, but it often turns out that they are just going through a bad spell!

Dysphasia - This is normally caused by a stroke. So older readers of Able2uk - take note! The left hand side of your brain looks after your communication skills and it is this which is affected when you have Dyshasia, which is also known as Aphasia. The severity can be mild to extreme. Understanding or communicating can be incredibly difficult and so can talking or solving simple sums. The symptom occurs when the blood supply is interrupted

Dyspraxia - If a person has Dyspraxia they are going to find nearly everything bloody hard work. Emotional, Intellectual, Sensory and even Social activities are going to be effected causing very low self esteem. It is difficult to pinpoint how somebody is effected by the illness, it could be a lack of oxygen at birth, a stroke, illness etc. Sometimes early diagnosis can be identified at a younger age. If a child is crap on Sports Day, has problems dressing themselves and find activity such as walking up and down stairs a chore. The most common symptom is bad handwriting. Trouble is, because the aforementioned warning signs can relate to most schoolchildren it is very hard to identify at an early age.