16 - Disability Flashcards
What is impairment?
a problem in body function or structure due to a physical loss, disease or condition
What is disability?
restriction of ability within a range considered normal resulting from impairment
What is the biomedical approach to disability?
Defines the starting point as an organic deficit, from which functional disability arises and social and psychological consequences can follow.
Biomedical approach to Down’s Syndrome
What is the aim of medicine (biomedical approach)?
To prevent or treat impairment or return the disabled to a state of normal functioning (rehabilitation)
E.g. cochlea implant –> Device to stimulate the auditory nerve in people who are profoundly deaf.
The deficit is the hearing problem and the way to address this is to ‘cure’ the haring impairment with, in this case a cochlea implant.
What is the social model of disability?
- Rejects impairment as inevitable cause of disability
- Barriers in society disable those with impairment
What does the social model imply disadvantages the disabled face result from?
- Disadvantages result less from impairment than from society’s inability to accommodate difference
- Disability is viewed politically as the material oppression of disabled people. Society discriminates against those with impairments.
- As a result they are affected materially, for example, reducing opportunity for independent living or excluding them from paid employment.
What does the social model emphasise?
It emphasises that disabled people are not victims of impairment, but active agents in our society who contribute to their families and society in what should be valued as an equal way.
Focus on function and impact rather than cause
Who came up with the social model of disability?
Oliver
What do some deaf people within the deaf culture think about implants?
Find the idea of ‘curing’ deafness via cochlea implants as a threat to their unique language and culture. Their motto is “Different but not deficient”
Difference in questions regarding deafness:
- Oliver: ‘Are your difficulties in understanding people mainly due to their inability to communicate with you?’
- Office National Statistics: ‘Are your difficulties in understanding people mainly due to a hearing problem?’
The very process of isolated disabled people being asked this kind of individualised question by someone in authority can serve to dis-empower them, since it reproduces and reinforces a personal tragedy view of disablement.
What are the 3 different types of social barriers?
- Environment
- Attitudes
- Organisations
What are environmental barriers?
Lack of reasonable adjustment to those with impairments (buildings, language, services, communication)
What are organisational barriers?
Inflexible system: e.g.:
Richard has Crohn’s disease; he needs to access the toilet frequently. He works in a call centre where employees are allowed 4 toilet breaks a day. Richard leaves.
What are attitude barriers?
Sterotypes, prejudice, discrimination
