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From speech impediments to deafness, a growing number of people with disabilities are shunning the corporate world and starting their own companies.

After a battle with sinus cancer, Dawn Hampton was wary of re-entering the workforce. The eye patch and dental prosthesis she was forced to wear — the disease claimed an eye, cheekbone, and several teeth — left her self-conscious about her appearance and speech.

“I thought no one would hire me because of what I look like,” Hampton says.

So she decided to become an entrepreneur.

Hampton, who had worked in hairdressing, retail, and construction prior to her diagnosis, used her first-hand knowledge of insurance claims to launch Ph.D. Organizational Services, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based firm that processes reimbursements for patients and physicians.

Concerned about corporate hiring practices and the potential for career advancement, Americans with speech impediments, hearing impairments, and other disabilities are opting to go into business for themselves.

When people with communication challenges “feel there are no options for career advancement, they have to pioneer,” says Sue Pressman, founder of Pressman Consulting, an Arlington, Va.-based corporate-development firm.

But the decision to branch out as an entrepreneur brings its own challenges, of course. “I would always avoid speaking situations and get around using the phone and giving talks,” says Mike Helmig, a chronic stutterer and founder of ProductionLine Testers, a Pleasanton, Calif.-based firm that manufactures semiconductor-testing equipment. “When you start a company, one of the things you learn is you have to do those things.”

Experience as an entrepreneur — Helmig founded two unsuccessful ventures in the 1980s — eventually taught him to focus on sales and other day-to-day areas of his company. Success, he says, boosts his confidence, which in turn decreases his stutter. He’s even found that his stutter gives him a competitive edge in China. “People have told me they like the way I talk,” he says. “It’s slow for them and they can understand me better.”

Inc