People with Disabilities: A Texas Profile

Table 8: Percentages of Texans with and without Disabilities by Education Level, 2011
Total Number of
Individuals Age 25
and Over in Each
With a Disability Without a Disability
Education Level
Education Category Number Percent Number Percent
Less than high school graduate 2,923,060 743,077 25.4% 2,179,983 74.6%
High school graduate (includes equivalency) 3,988,652 761,836 19.1% 3,226,816 80.9%
Some college or associate degree 4,591,887 657,524 14.3% 3,934,363 85.7%
Bachelor degree or higher
Noninstitutionalized population 25 years of
4,239,441 339,374 8.0% 3,900,067 92.0%
age and over 15,743,040 2,501,811 15.9% 13,241,229 84.1%
Table notes: 2011 ACS microdata. Percentages represent the portion of the 25‐years‐old and older population
with and without disabilities at each education level.
Table 9 illustrates the specific types of disabilities reported by Texans in 2011. The reported disability
categories are not mutually exclusive and the same individual could report multiple disabilities.
Approximately 1.6 million individuals, 53.6 percent of the population of individuals with disabilities,
reported having an ambulatory difficulty. Approximately 37 percent of the population of individuals
with disabilities reported cognitive difficulties, and 34.6 percent reported independent living difficulties.
Hearing, self‐care, and vision difficulties were the fourth, fifth, and sixth most frequently reported.
Table 9: Number of Individuals in Texas Reporting Each Type of Disability, 2011
Disability Number Percent
Ambulatory difficulty 1,567,087 53.6%
Cognitive difficulty 1,090,515 37.3%
Independent living difficulty 1,010,838 34.6%
Hearing difficulty 842,803 28.8%
Self‐care difficulty 624,602 21.4%
Vision difficulty 615,836 21.1%
Total with a disability 2,922,021
Table notes: 2011 ACS microdata. Reported disability categories are not mutually exclusive and one individual
could report having several disabilities. Percentages represent the portion of the population of individuals with
disabilities reporting each difficulty.
The specific types of reported disabilities are presented in Table 10 by age categories. As previously
noted, not all disability questions were asked of each age category. The increased prevalence of
disabilities can again be observed for individuals in the older age categories. Less than one percent of
the population under 5 years old is reported as having a disability. The most frequently reported
disability of the population between the ages of five and 15 was cognitive difficulty, followed by self‐
care and vision difficulties. For individuals between the ages of 16 and 24, cognitive difficulties were
also the most frequently reported, followed by independent living, vision, and ambulatory difficulties.
For all age categories over the age of 25, the most frequently reported difficulty was ambulatory. For
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