Empathy and Sympathy

I feel there is a big difference between these two definitions in general but regarding people with disabilities, it means the world. To me, sympathy is when someone feels bad for someone who has a disability and empathy is when people acknowledge that someone has a "impairment" (if I will) and treat the person with the disability as having an ability and I hate saying that because I treat myself to not having a disability and actually I have more knowledge of situations that people without disabilities do. I've heard somewhere that people with disabilities actually have more abilities because we all know what kind of life we are dealing with and it gives us time to figure out situations in which we may not be able to over come without this knowledge. My mom has always told me that "knowledge is power" and I strongly agree to this statement even now. In order to learn and know what people with disabilities go through, I really want to stress that empathy is way better to make us understand better what people with disabilities go through