Advantages and Limitations of Washington Group-Short Set

The WG-SS has several key advantages.

• Functional approach: Asking about difficulties with basic activities avoids the stigma and preconceptions inherent in asking about “disability”;
• Tested: The WG-SS has undergone extensive cognitive and field testing in a variety of countries, with persons of low-to-high income, and in every region of the world;
• Internationally comparable: The questions address core, basic activities that are easy to compare across different countries and cultures, as borne out by test results;
• Comprehensive: The questions identify the majority of persons who have disabilities. To identify more people, more questions, such as those in the WG ES-F, are needed;
• Feasible: These questions are succinct and simple enough to be easily added to existing censuses and surveys or to project-based data. They take approximately 1.25 minutes per person to administer.

That there are only six questions means there are also limitations. The WG-SS will, as mentioned, identify most, but not all, people with disabilities. In addition, the WG-SS is:

• Inappropriate for children under age 5: The questions cannot accurately identify small children with disabilities;
• Less effective for children aged between 5 and 18: While the questions are able to identify most children with vision, hearing, and mobility disabilities, they probably miss many children with developmental disabilities;
• Less effective for psychosocial disabilities: While data shows that many people with psychosocial disabilities are identified by the WG-SS via the cognition (remembering/concentrating) and communicating questions, others are missed.  Furthermore, those identified as having a disability cannot be identified as having a psychosocial issue;
• Omitting aspects of disability:  The questions fail to capture important concepts such as the age of onset, the cause of the disability, the use and impact of assistive devices, or the nature of environmental barriers.

To address these limitations, more questions beyond the six in the WG-SS are required. Many of them are addressed in the WG ES-F, and the Module on Child Functioning.