Theoretical Models of Disability Flashcards
Define Medical Model
The medical model defines disability in terms of biological impairments. Disability is viewed as a problem that is caused by medically-diagnosed genetic disorders, disease, trauma, or other health conditions. Disability is treated as a biological problem that diminishes quality of life and needs to be treated with professional medical care.
Strengths of the Medical Model
Explicitly acknowledges that there is a biological condition that places an individual at a disadvantage compared to the majority of the population.
In a clinical medical setting, a clearly-defined set of biological criteria to diagnose a person’s condition helps medical professionals make important decisions in terms of treatment.
Similarly, when deciding who should receive government assistance, a clearly-defined set of criteria helps inform those decisions.
Weakness of the Medical Model
The medical model treats disability as a problem or inherent characteristic of the individual and seeks a cure or medical management of a bodily condition, often overlooking the broader sociopolitical constraints imposed by unwelcoming or inaccessible environments.
Define the Social Model
The social model of disability is a direct response to the medical model. Rather than place the definition of “disability” entirely on the person with a disability, the social model points out that society creates disabling conditions. To a large extent, “disability” is an avoidable condition caused by poor design.
The social model doesn’t deny that there is a biological or medical component to disability. It merely points out that more inclusive designs can remove the barriers that people with disabilities face in their everyday lives. The social model emphasizes the human rights of people with disabilities to participate in society in meaningful ways.
The social model of disability provides a meaningful context for accessibility professionals. People who make accessible web sites, buildings, consumer products, and transportation systems are doing their part to ensure that the environments we create are enabling and not disabling for people with different physical abilities.
Strength of the Social Model
The social model’s focus on the disabling conditions in the environment and in society makes it clear that the barriers and challenges experienced by people with disabilities are not inevitable, nor are they exclusively a characteristic of the individual’s “broken” body. Societies can improve the lives of people with disabilities considerably by ensuring that the world is designed to accommodate a wide range of human characteristics and abilities.
Weakness of the Social Model
The social model of disability can tend to downplay the embodied aspects of disabilities too much, as if disability had nothing to do with bodily characteristics at all. The social model’s push for social justice in the political arena can also put activists at odds with people with other political interests, antagonizing relationships and sometimes creating resolute political adversaries.
Define the Biopsychosocial Model
The biopsychosocial model recognizes that disability is a complex and multi-faceted concept and incorporates the perspectives of the medical and social models. This includes the biological, individual, and social aspects of disability.
This model is the basis for the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), a publication by the World Health Organization in 2002.
Define the Economic Model
The economic model views disabilities from the perspective of the economic impact of the disability on individuals, employers, the state, and welfare programs.
This model recognizes that disabilities impact people’s ability to work, which has various implications. For example, a person with a disability may earn less money and have a higher cost for necessary assistance (such as a care provider). An employer might have lower profit margins, and the state might have increased cost in terms of welfare programs.
While this model does well to recognize that bodily limitations impact work, it may also create a sense of stigma. In other words, if a group of people is legally defined as needing assistance such as disability payments, they may be negatively viewed as being “needy” members of society. We can see how in this way, the economic model is closely related to the charity model. In addition, many people have disabilities that significantly impact their ability to work, but they do not meet the legal definition of having a disability and therefore do not qualify for various assistance programs.
Strengths of Economic Model
The economic model recognizes the effect of bodily limitations on a person’s ability to work, and there may be a need for economic support and / or accommodations for the person’s disability.
Weakness of Economic Model
The economic model creates a legally defined category of people who are needy, which can be stigmatizing for people with disabilities. Also, if a person doesn’t meet the legal threshold for disabled, or if there is a dispute as to a person’s disability, the person with the disability may not receive the support they need.
Define the Functional Solutions Model
The functional solutions model of disability is a practical perspective that identifies the limitations (or “functional impairments”) due to disability, with the intent to create and promote solutions to overcome those limitations. The primary task is to eliminate, or at least reduce, the impact of the functional limitations of the body through technological or methodological innovation. The pragmatism of the functional solution model deemphasizes the sociopolitical aspects of disability, and instead prioritizes inventiveness and entrepreneurship.
Strengths of the Functional Solutions Model
The strongest aspect of this model is that it is results-oriented. It seeks to provide solutions to real-world challenges, while sidestepping the often-convoluted sociopolitical implications of disability within society.
Weakness of the Functional Solutions Model
When new technologies are involved, profit-driven entrepreneurs can sometimes miss the mark, creating products that may be innovative but not practical or useful, or which may be of more benefit to the innovators than to the target population, especially if the proposed solutions are expensive. Also, when the primary cause of a particular challenge is the socioeconomic circumstances in the environment, the functional solutions model’s de-emphasis on socioeconomic issues can cause
Define the Social Identity or Cultural Affiliation Model
The social identity or cultural affiliation model refers to a sense of deriving one’s personal identity from membership within a group of like-minded individuals. This model is most evident among people who are deaf, because of their shared linguistic experience as sign language users. For example, Deaf culture and identity owes much of its strength to the somewhat exclusive nature of being a part of a close-knit linguistic minority.
Other people with disabilities may also feel a sense of belonging to a community with common life experiences and interests.
Strengths of the Social Identity or Cultural Affiliations Model
The social identity or cultural affiliation model accepts the person’s disability completely and uses it as a point of pride in being associated with other people in a similar condition.
