Theoretical Models of Disability Flashcards
1. Identify prominent theoretical models of disability. 2. Describe their basic concepts, and understand their strengths and weaknesses. 3. Identify which models align most closely with the principles of accessibility and universal design. 4. Apply the models to example scenarios in the lives of people with disabilities.
What is a theoretical model of disability?
Theoretical models of disability provide perspectives and frameworks through which to understand disability.
No model is fully correct or incorrect.
Each has strengths and weaknesses.
What is the Medical Model?
- Views disability as a problem of the person, caused by disease, trauma, or other health conditions
- Disability management is aimed at a “cure” or “almost-cure.”
- At the political level, it is about modifying or reforming healthcare policy.
What are the strengths of the Medical Model?
- Addresses the biological sources of disabilities, either by clinically curing them or providing ways to medically manage the conditions.
- The medical component of disabilities is a critical reality for many people.
What are the weaknesses of the Medical Model?
- Treats disability as a problem with the individual.
- Overlooks the broader sociopolitical constraints imposed by unwelcoming or inaccessible environments.
What is the Social Model?
- Disability is a socially created problem and a matter of the full integration of individuals into society.
- Disability is a complex collection of conditions created by the social environment.
- Requires social action and is the responsibility of society at large to make the environmental modifications necessary.
- The issue is both cultural and ideological, requiring individual, community, and large-scale social change.
- Equal access for someone with an impairment / disability is a human rights issue.
What are the strengths of the Social Model?
Makes it clear that the barriers and challenges experienced by people with disabilities are not inevitable or characteristic of the individual’s “broken” body.
What are the weaknesses of the Social Model?
- Tends to downplay the embodied aspects of disabilities too much, as if disability had nothing to do with bodily characteristics at all.
- Can put activists at odds with people with other political interests, sometimes creating resolute political adversaries.
What is the Biopsychosocial Model?
Synthesizes what is true in the medical and social models without making the mistake each makes in reducing disability to one of its aspects.
What is the Economic Model?
- Disability is defined by a person’s inability to participate in work.
- Assesses how impairment affects productivity and the economic consequences for the individual, employer, and state.
- Consequences include loss of earnings for individual, lower profit for employer, and state welfare payments.
- Related to the Charity Model
What are the strengths of the Economic Model?
Recognizes the effect of bodily limitations on the ability to work and the potential need for economic support and/or accommodations.
What are the weaknesses of the Economic Model?
- Creates a legally defined category of people who are needy, which can be stigmatizing.
- A person with a disability may not receive needed support if they don’t meet the legal threshold for disabled or if there is a dispute about their disability.
What is the Functional Solutions Model?
- Identifies the limitations (or “functional impairments”) due to disability
- Intends to create and promote solutions to overcome the limitations.
- Primary task is to eliminate or reduce the impact of limitations through technological or methodological innovation.
- Practical and pragmatic in deemphasizing the sociopolitical aspects of disability.
- Prioritizing inventiveness and entrepreneurship.
What are the strengths of the Functional Solutions Model?
- It’s results-oriented.
- Provides actual solutions to challenges.
- Sidesteps convoluted sociopolitical implications.
What are the weaknesses of the Functional Solutions Model?
- Solutions may not actually be practical or useful.
- Solutions may be too expensive.
- If the primary cause for a challenge/limitation is socioeconomic or environmental, the solution may encourage ignoring the more important aspects of the problem.
What is the Social Identity or Cultural Affiliation Model?
- Refers to deriving one’s personal identity from membership within a group of like-minded individuals.
- Other people with disabilities may also feel a sense of belonging to a community with common experiences and interests.
