Chapter 11: Disability and Social Work Practice

Question 1

What is the standard for Disability from the WHO?

Answer 1

“disability is the result of the interaction between a person’s functional limitations and barriers in the environment, including social and physical barriers that make it harder to function day-to-day”

Question 2

What is a prolonged condition?

Answer 2

continuous over a period greater than 12 months and severity is defined by marked or significant activity restrictions, all or substantially (at least 90 per cent) all of the time

Question 3

How does the medical model of disability view disability?

Answer 3

Views disability as an individual deficit and identifies disability as being fundamentally biological in origin.

Question 4

How does the social model of disability view disability?

Answer 4

In contrast to the medical model of disability, this model contends that disability is created or constructed by social and environmental factors only.

Question 5

What are the three downfalls of the medical model of disability?

Answer 5

• First, within this model, disability is viewed as a set of static, uniform, and pathological characteristics.
• Second, in identifying disability as an individual deficit, this model serves to objectify the individual (Smart, 2001).
• Third, this model does not consider the social or environmental factors of disability and may thereby medicalize or diminish social problems that cause disability

Question 6

What are the three downfalls of the social model of disability?

Answer 6

• First, the social model risks discounting the individual entirely.
• Second, the social model not only assumes that all people with disabilities are oppressed but does not acknowledge that this group differs from other oppressed groups in that its members experience both discrimination or oppression and impairments in bodily structure and function (Shakespeare, 2006b).
• Finally, taken to its fullest application, the social model of disability calls for a “barrier-free utopia,” which, given the plurality of experiences and abilities, is virtually impossible

Question 7

What does ICF recognize disability as?

Answer 7

A universal experience

Question 8

What are the three aspects that a disability comprises?

Answer 8

(1) bodily functions and structures,
(2) activity and participation domains, and
(3) environmental factors including physical, social, and attitudinal settings.

Question 9

What are the two categories for disabilities in Canada?

Answer 9

(1) the categorical or diagnostic approach or

(2) the non-categorical or functional approach

Question 10

What are the benefits to categorical approach?

Answer 10

-provides standardized care to individuals across different contexts (e.g. eases clinical discussions and brings consistency to practice and research; Stein & Jessop, 1982)
• allows medicine to specialize and develop expertise in a certain area (e.g. Parkinson’s disease, spina bifida)
• allows clinical research to study specific groups with the aim of improving services and individual quality of life
• permits the collection and tracking of public health statistics
• permits community-building among those with a shared diagnosis

Question 11

What are the limitations to categorical approach?

Answer 11

• may diminish the differences between individuals with a shared diagnosis and the commonalities between individuals with different diagnoses (Stein & Jessop, 1982)
• clinical studies that use a categorical approach cannot explore the experiences of rare disorders (due to small sample sizes)

Question 12

What are benefits to non-categorical approach?

Answer 12

• acknowledges the interaction between the impairment in bodily structure and function and the environment
• reduces stigma attached to specific diagnoses
• provides the individual, their family, and service providers, including social workers, with tangible, individualized areas for intervention that are grounded in the day-to-day lives of people with disabilities

Question 13

What are limitations to non-categorical approach?

Answer 13

• complicates classification (medical intervention and clinical research)
• may be time-consuming and difficult to apply in practice (as an awareness and understanding of how the impairment fits within the context of the individual’s life is needed)

Question 14

How many canadians reported experiencing limitation due to physical, mental or health related condition?

Answer 14

6.2 million or 22.3%

Question 15

How were people admitted to the first asylum? 2

Answer 15

(1) designation from two physicians attesting to lunacy (definitions of lunacy varied by physician), or
(2) statement from a justice of the peace saying that the individual was “suspected and believed to be insane and dangerous to be at large”

Question 16

What is eugenics?

Answer 16

The practice of selecting desired human traits to improve the genetic stock of the population and preventing the breeding of those with undesired traits.

Question 17

What was the belief held by the Eugenics society of canada based on the work of Dugdale, Goddard, and Galton?

Answer 17

was that immoral people have more children than moral people and that complex behavioural traits are faithfully inherited.

Question 18

Two needs to be sterilized in alberta?

Answer 18

sterilization in Alberta continued after the repeal, though now there was a requirement that sterilization be

• performed by a qualified medical practitioner in adequate facilities, and
• with informed consent from patient and spouse/guardian

Question 19

What id deinstutionalization and how has it been shaped by social reform?

Answer 19

As a social reform, the deinstitutionalization movement identified the segregation and institutionalization of individuals as oppressive, harmful, and stigmatizing and acknowledged that the needs and rights of individuals with disabilities could be better met within their home communities.

Question 20

What is the normalization principle?

Answer 20

means that you act right when you make available to all persons with intellectual or other impairments or disabilities those patterns of life and conditions of everyday living that are as close as possible to, or indeed the same as, the regular circumstances and ways of life of their communities and their culture

Question 21

Three types of transfers provincial government receives?

Answer 21

(1) Canada Health Transfer (CHT);
(2) Canada Social Transfer (CST); and
(3) Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing

Question 22

Two ways quality and access to services differ

Answer 22

• First, not all services, particularly specialized services, are available across all regions in each province and territory.
• Second, jurisdictional disputes between federal and provincial governments regarding responsibility for ­health-care provision may impede timely decisions related to health care

Question 23

What are three core values for social workers?

Answer 23

(1) “respect for the inherent dignity and worth of persons”;
(2) “pursuit of social justice”; and
(3) “service to humanity,”