For the "difficulty" questions I would look at the ACS form/questionnaire, which is mailed to households. https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/methodology/questionnaires/2022/quest22.pdf And think about how you would answer the questions for yourself or your family members. For example:
Is this person deaf or does he/she have serious diffculty hearing?
Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?
From Jonathan's reference: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/subject_definitions/2021_ACSSubjectDefinitions.pdf
In an attempt to capture a variety of characteristics that encompass the definition of disability, the ACS identifies serious difficulty with four basic areas of functioning – hearing, vision, cognition, and ambulation. These functional limitations are supplemented by questions about difficulties with selected activities from the Katz Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scales, namely difficulty bathing and dressing, and difficulty performing errands such as shopping. Overall, the ACS attempts to capture six aspects of disability, which can be used together to create an overall disability measure, or independently to identify populations with specific disability types.
If you are using these questions in a health related study, then I would dig into further detail about the questions.
I've done some work with interview questions and psychometric scales. Here is a working paper by the US Census and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) with an analysis of the performance characteristics of the questions:
www.census.gov/.../2007_Brault_01.pdf