The following questions deal with the permanent difficulties that the people can have with carrying out certain habitual activities due to a health problem.

43. Respond to the following questions:

Does [the respondent] have permanent difficulty with:

43.4 Understanding and/or learning (PerDi05)
(For people 6 years or older)

The objective of this module is to know the number of people that have some permanent difficulty seeing, hearing, walking, or learning, as well as the level of severity.

Disability is any limitation of activity and restriction in participation coming from a deficiency that permanently affects a person and his or her ability to become involved in daily life within his or her physical and social environment.

• Activity is the completion of a task or action by a person.
• Limitation of activity refers to the difficulty that a person could have in carrying out or performing daily activities and that originates in a deficiency (for example: seeing, hearing, walking, learning, etc.).
• Restriction of participation refers to the problems that a person can experience when involved in vital situations, originating in a deficiency.  For example with work, with learning, with recreation, etc.
• Deficiency refers to problems with body functions or structures, such as a significant alteration or loss.

In order to consider that a person has a determined disability, the limitation of activity and the restriction of participation should be permanent and always originating from a deficiency, this referring to the field of health.  This means that limitations and restrictions originating from socioeconomic or cultural factors.

The deficiencies, that should be part of or express a state of health, can include abnormalities, defects, losses, or any other deviation of body structures.  They don't necessarily indicate that the individual has a sickness or should be considered sick.  For example, the loss of a leg is a deficiency but not a disorder or a sickness.

Important: The difficulty or limitation of activity must be current, in other words, it must be affecting the individual at the moment of the investigation, and permanent, that's to say long lasting in time, affecting and expected to affect for a period of time greater than a year.

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Consequently, the short-term difficulties due to temporary, or transitory conditions such as fractures or sicknesses (for example, he or she does not walk because the leg is fractured and in a cast, he or she does not speak because of a sharp hoarseness caused by a cold, etc.) are excluded.

The options of response for the questions of the module are the following.

• Yes, some difficulty
• Yes, much difficulty
• Yes, he/she cannot do it (see, hear, walk, learn)
• Doesn't have any difficulty

Does he/she have permanent difficulty with understanding and/or learning?

For people six years or older.

This refers to the people with difficulty learning, understanding, memorizing, reproducing, or executing operations or reading, writing, or calculating.

In case of an affirmative response, consult about the level of said difficulty and record the option that corresponds.