January 9, 2024
What is a disability? How do we define and understand it? Is the ‘disabling’ factor to do with the person or their environment? How then should we act towards people with and without disabilities as a society?
These simple questions have many layers of complexity, and the way we answer them impacts millions of those with disability. Theoretical models attempt understand disability, however, their practical implications must be considered in order to judge their usefulness in social application.
Medical Model
The medical model is the traditional approach in Western culture, and looks at disability through a biological and impairment-based lens, and assesses personal factors that disable them from certain functionalities.
The question is asked, then, how much impairment constitutes as disability? Every human being by nature has some level of impairment compared with the next person.
This model has been claimed by some to be ‘dehumanising’ where it causes people to have to prove the validity or severity of their disability. This is only dehumanising, though, if humanity is defined by external functionalities, rather than intrinsic nature that is inherited.
Taking the basis of disability as impairment-based, although seemingly fundamental, requires balanced consideration in understanding the implications of why certain impairments experienced by people constitute as ‘disability’. Breakdown in body structures and functions are not necessarily disability if there are no implications of it in a person’s interaction with their environment.
Social Model
The social model of disability emerged in the 70’s, and describes disability as fundamentally an issue with ‘disabling’ structures and attitudes within society. It presupposes that barriers to participation within society are the source of problem in disability, not personal limitations that constitute impairment. A discriminatory society which excludes certain members from what is accepted as the normative experience.
Anecdotal evidence and stakeholder opinions seem to provide the basis for the social model, which can be problematic as attitudes and experiences change over time in history and cultural context. This also leaves the door open to anyone claiming they are impacted by disability on the basis of external challenges rather than an actual impairment, leading to society providing support where it is not actually needed.
It can be agreed that society could be made more accommodating for all people, however, there must be a limit to how much it can cater to everyone. Within the so called ‘normative’ experience, without disability, much of society’s structures and attitudes exclude a range of people, for example, access to healthcare and entertainment for people living in rural and remote communities, prestigious schools and programs that exclude those not academically capable enough, even toilets made for only their respective genders. The concept of exclusion is not foreign to society, and is not necessarily the causative issue in disability.
Practical Implications
In practice, I would predict that the medical model of disability is more effective in helping people with disabilities move forward in ability, access and achievement within a society that also understands their responsibility to uphold the universal dignity of all human beings. This is because it can help to identify what areas of limitation need support, therapy, surgery, assistive technology, etc, in order to restore function and improve involvement in life.
The social model of disability is not able to restore such impairments with structural adjustments in society. Hyper-focusing on how society has been developed for people who function normatively can further fixate on the loss of function in people with disability without restoratively identifying their needs.
Recent initiatives including sensory hour in shopping centres provide an example of an attempt to solve a real impairment through altering the environment.
Breakdowns in sensory processing ranges in severity, and these initiatives only make shops more accessible for a limited number of people. They do not change a person’s ability to cope with other high-sensory environments that can’t be altered. Instead, targeting treatment of this impairment to promote increased sensory processing in those individuals equips them to gain new skills and strengths, leading to increased participation in any high-sensory environment due to the restored functioning.
Conclusions
In educational spaces, emerging healthcare professionals are often tasked to think critically about the way disability structures function according to the social model of disability, however, the tools used should also be subject to the same level of critical analysis and scrutiny to maximise its effectiveness.
Establishing models to describe and define disability can be helpful, but caution must be taken in informing how to take the most effective approach to supporting people with disability in society. Personal experiences and perspectives are important to consider insomuch as they supplement understanding of the real impacts of disability across varying personal experiences.
Thus, a single model of disability may not provide the solution to informing best practice for society. The most effective outcomes may be achieved from simply prioritising supports and services for people with disability to meet their needs in specific areas of impairment.
Providing registered NDIS disability services and building communities throughout Brisbane.
