Box 1. Washington Group Short Set of Questions

A graphic representing the Washington Group Short Set of Questions, which covers six core domains: walking, seeing, hearing, cognition, self-care and communication.

Source: Handicap International – Humanity & Inclusion (n.d.)

Image description

A graphic representing the Washington Group Short Set of Questions, which covers six core domains: walking, seeing, hearing, cognition, self-care and communication.

End of image description

The Washington Group on Disability Statistics has developed tools to measure disability in line with the functional approach of the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. They avoid the term ‘disability’ and instead only address limitations in undertaking basic activities. Although originally designed for large-scale national questionnaires, development and humanitarian organizations increasingly use these tools for their own purposes. In particular, they apply the Washington Group Short Set of Questions, which covers six core domains: walking, seeing, hearing, cognition, self-care and communication. Each question has four response categories: 1) No, no difficulty; 2) Yes, some difficulty; 3) Yes, a lot of difficulty; 4) Cannot do it at all (Cheshire and HI, 2018, p.7). The Washington Group also has additional tools for situations that require more detail or concern children.15