There are marked differences between child and adult causes of disability. For children with disabilities, most impairments were present at birth. For adults, disease and illness was the main cause of impairment, followed by accident and injury.
An impairment is the term for the actual condition that someone has. Disabled people can have multiple impairments and these may have more than one cause, which is why the percentages on this graph add up to more than 100%.
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Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
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