Welcome to the World of Disability
You may have arrived here because you are curious, you consider yourself to be disabled, or may soon be as a result of a diagnosis or have a developing health problem. Whatever the reason, you’re welcome here and if this is right for you, hopefully we can help you in your journey.
Let's dive in...
In these sections, you will read stories from different disabled people about the moment they [literally] woke up as disabled or slowly realised they were entering the world of disability, or from people who developed an awareness about their rights and how they were being discriminated against. They are all for you to read and learn and hopefully gain strength from as the battle between our ears is often the hardest.
There are also things that you may be interested to read, like what is a disabled identity? Or what is the social or medical model? How can I get more involved in disability rights?
The World of Disability
This is both a simple and a complex question which can be very easily answered, although there are a couple of different ways to answer it. The answers will be different depending on if we use the Medical, Social or Affirmation Model to help us understand and organise the world around us.
A Medical Model of disability defines disability as something wrong with you which is caused by a physical, emotional, or mental impairment; it says you HAVE a disability. Within the Medical Model, disability is largely an individual concern, and is managed (or ideally cured) through medical therapies or technologies. A Medical Model will say that you are disabled if you have condition X or condition Y or you have had the misfortune to have an accident which has caused your disability.
The Social Model of disability proposes that what makes you disabled is not your medical condition, but the attitudes and structures of society; you ARE disabled. A Social Model understands disability to be created for the most part, not by our impairments, but by the structural inequities you encounter in society: it is the experience of barriers which define disability, and not individual conditions. These barriers exist as physical, cultural, and economic and can exclude you, preventing your social participation. The Social Model encourages you to self-identify as disabled and does not put any emphasis on ‘diagnosis’.
The Affirmation Model offers you the opportunity of overlaying a positive element to the experience of disability. Within the Affirmation Model, we accept disability as a characteristic of life to be valued as well as managed and one which presents unique perspectives. The Affirmation Model is aspirational as it offers you the opportunity to flourish and to become the person that you want to be, a choice which is generally lacking amongst other models which view your disability as something tragic.
Responding to disability also varies according to which model you are using. A Medical Model which understands disability in terms of disease/condition progression responds by trying to find a cure or management approach to mitigate symptoms. A Medical Model would present a list of conditions with adaptations connected to each condition or medical situation. For example, medical professionals would recommend the use of coloured tracing paper or fidget cushions for somebody autistic as these are associated with managing the symptoms of neurodivergent conditions. However, one autistic person may experience an entirely different set of experiences than another neurodivergent person and attempting to overlay somebody else’s experiences can serve to reinforce inequalities and disadvantage.
The Social Model would put an emphasis on the employer and what could be put in place in the workplace to ensure staff can perform as effective professionals. The Medical Model would emphasise the individual and their impairments and how the condition affects staff members at work, with the onus being on the individual to resolve their own situation.
It’s up to you how you choose to understand your own disability. We all have our interpretations and ironically 70% of Disabled People have not heard of the Social Model of disability.
The Equality Act (2010) defines a disability as:
A physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. This is a Medical Model view which sees disability as being caused by an impairment which negatively impacts an individual who is unable to do ‘normal’ activities, identifying disability as a tragedy.
World Health Organisation View
World Health Organisation promotes a view of disability that is a mixture of the medical and Social Model which incorporates:
- Impairments: Problems in body function or alterations in body structure, for example, paralysis or blindness.
- Activity limitations: Difficulties in executing activities, for example, walking or eating.
- Participation restrictions: Problems with involvement in any area of life, for example, facing discrimination in employment or transportation.
The Social Model of Disability
The Social Model of disability was developed by Disabled People and says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for Disabled People. When barriers are removed, Disabled People can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives.
It offers the following as a counter to the Medical Model definition:
You are disabled if on a ‘substantial’ or ‘long term’ basis you have had to deal with other people’s oppressive expectations and assumptions about people with impairments, and have on that basis found your life made difficult and your opportunities for equal participation restricted. (Cameron, 2023)
The Affirmation Model
The Affirmation Model builds on the understanding developed in the Social Model and validates impairment as part of ordinary human difference and rejects understanding impairment only as individual deficit. In the Affirmation Model, disability is identified as a form of social oppression imposed on people with impairments in their encounters with normalising judgements in everyday life, and in terms of the outcomes of those encounters.
The Equality Act (2010) defines a disability as:
A physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. This is a Medical Model view which sees disability as being caused by an impairment which negatively impacts an individual who is unable to do ‘normal’ activities, identifying disability as a tragedy.
World Health Organisation View
World Health Organisation promotes a view of disability that is a mixture of the medical and Social Model which incorporates:
- Impairments: Problems in body function or alterations in body structure, for example, paralysis or blindness.
- Activity limitations: Difficulties in executing activities, for example, walking or eating.
- Participation restrictions: Problems with involvement in any area of life, for example, facing discrimination in employment or transportation.
The Social Model of Disability
The Social Model of disability was developed by Disabled People and says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for Disabled People. When barriers are removed, Disabled People can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives.
It offers the following as a counter to the Medical Model definition:
You are disabled if on a ‘substantial’ or ‘long term’ basis you have had to deal with other people’s oppressive expectations and assumptions about people with impairments, and have on that basis found your life made difficult and your opportunities for equal participation restricted. (Cameron, 2023)
The Affirmation Model
The Affirmation Model builds on the understanding developed in the Social Model and validates impairment as part of ordinary human difference and rejects understanding impairment only as individual deficit. In the Affirmation Model, disability is identified as a form of social oppression imposed on people with impairments in their encounters with normalising judgements in everyday life, and in terms of the outcomes of those encounters.
Disability Identity and Language
Disability identity sometimes shows up in the ways people choose to refer to themselves, with some choosing ‘identity-first’ language, while others choose ‘people-first’ language.
Identity-first language begins with describing the disability first when speaking about a person. For example, you might say “an autistic person” rather than “a person with autism.” People who prefer identity-first language argue that it acknowledges a core part of their identity. On the other hand, people with Down’s syndrome and other disability communities prefer people-first language. So, you would say “person with Down’s syndrome” as opposed to “Down’s syndrome person.”
Regardless of whether a person uses identity-first or person-first language to describe themselves, disability is only one aspect of an individual’s identity, and it is up to them how they do that.
It can be helpful to use a combination of person-first and identity-first language when describing disability communities broadly, and the more popular convention for specific communities. When talking about an individual, we use the Ask First method (ask the person what they prefer if you need to describe them by their disability). Most people with disabilities consider terms like “special needs,” “differently abled,” “handicapable,” and other euphemisms to be antiquated, so unless a disabled person (not their parent, teacher, or other support person) uses one of these terms to describe themselves, we generally avoid them.
For more guidance:
People's Stories
Hear authentic stories from disabled people across the North East.
