Celebratory Model And Social Model Of Disability

The Medical Model regards disability as an individual problem. It promotes a traditional view of disability, that it is something to be ‘cured’, even though many conditions have no cure. The problem is seen as the disabled person and their impairment, not society, and the solution is seen as adapting the disabled person to fit the non-disabled world, often through medical intervention. Control resides firmly with professionals; choices for the individual are limited to the options provided and approved by the 'helping' expert.

“The social model of disability sees the issue of "disability" as a socially created problem and a matter of the full integration of individuals into society. In this model, disability is not the problem of the individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are created by the social environment. Hence, the management of the problem requires social action and is the collective responsibility of society at large to make the environmental modifications necessary for the full

Let’s say you have a box of crayons. It represents ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), now inside the box you have different colors of crayons. Each color/crayon is a different disorder. The color we want to talk about today is teal, the official color for autism. Stuart Duncan once said, “Autism, like a rainbow, has a bright side and a dark side and even though it can mean rough waters it can be beautiful.” Autism isn’t a label, it’s a diagnoses. People with autism can be just as successful as neurotypical people. People with autism have been the subject of stereotypes and neglect for decades. Only in the last 150 years or so have things started to change. We don’t know what causes autism, but thanks to increased research and awareness we’re making more progress than ever. People with autism face many challenges everyday, autism is a spectrum. It’s not the same for everyone. Due to it being a spectrum it can be hard for people without autism to understand the challenges autistic people face, and how to go about interacting with autistic people. There are lots of autistic people worldwide, it’s time we start making them feel more like people.

The medical model of disability views disabilities as a problem that belongs to the disabled person. It is not seen as a problem that needs the concern of anyone else apart from the disabled individual affected, for example if a wheelchair user is unable to get into a building because there are steps then, the wheelchair is seen as the problem not the steps, according to the medical model.

The development of different models of disability proposed diverse, and often opposite views on the relationships between the disabled people and the rest of the society (White et al., 2010). The ideas and models developed from the dependence model, that existed for a long time, to independent living model and transformation of the idea of caring for disabled (Cameron, 2014, p.21), to the idea of interdependence that, to some extent, is opposite to independence model (White et al., 2010).

Society often focuses on what a person lacks in terms of disability and focuses on condition or illness or a person’s lack of ability. Medical model of disability which views adults has having an impairment or lacking in some way

When reading the first chapter of Ten Things Every Child with Autism wishes you Knew by Ellen Notbohm, multiple thoughts ran through my head. I honestly feel that she did an excellent job expressing the thoughts about autism. In my point of view autism is so much more than a diagnosis. Two important people in my life have autism and honestly, they are the most amazing individuals I have ever met. The authors words that brought tears to my eyes was, “My autism is part of who I am, not all of who I am” (Notbohm 17). This statement moved me, because individuals with autism are so much more than a label. Individuals that have autism are talented, intelligent, caring, kind, and funny. We should not judge or treat an individual different by the way they express themselves. Each individual is unique and should be able to express themselves in their personal way instead of being labeled in a negative way. I have personally encounter individuals use words such as, “that autistic boy” or “just leave him other there, he doesn’t understand the material because he is autistic”. When I hear people says these negative things, it makes me angry and sad, because I believe that they have not fully comprehended the diagnosis as well as not allow themselves to get to know

Disability in a socio-cultural context can be defined as "a barrier to participation of people with impairments or chronic illnesses arising from an interaction of the impairment or illness with discriminatory attitudes, cultures, policies or institutional practices" (Booth, 2000). The traditional view of disability often focuses on the individual, highlighting incapacities or failings, a defect, or impairment. This focus creates obstacles to participation on equal terms since an individual who seems to lack certain capacities may not be able to attain autonomy.

To address the perpetual need for widespread public awareness and core education on various Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), it is important to provide the normally-born people with training and education to help them support individuals born with an ASD and how not to treat them.

My examples are the article “I Cannot Call My Sister Cute: Autism and Infantilization” by Aimee Creigh and the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. In the article, “I Cannot Call My Sister Cute: Autism and Infantilization” by Aimee Creigh, on page 1 she explains “When you see, meet, or think about a person with a disability, presume competence” (Creigh 1). The definition of competence is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently; throughout society we ore competent with normal people, but with people with autism we act funny and are dramatic to emphasize that they are cute and different. In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon I will use the quote “I will get a lady to marry me and be my wife and she can look after me so I can have company and not be on my own” (Haddon 45). Cute right? That’s what society wants us to think, that if someone has a disability they automatically act cute and are adorable. People with disabilities shouldn’t have to deal with the stereotype

In today’s world, it is easy to label people based on what society defines as “normal.” Society dictates how we view people on a daily basis and this forces people to view things from a singular perspective. Unfortunately, this single point of view may lead to discrimination against people who are “different.” For example, those with disabilities and other diagnoses are neglected, overlooked, or judged by those who are influenced by that singular perspective. In specific, Autism which is referred to as Autistic Spectrum Disorder, is something that the public has heard before but they do not fully understand or are unaware about its true definition. “According to the Centers for Disease Control’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM), approximately 1 in 68 children have been identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)” (CDC, 2016). This increased prevalence is why it is important to continue educating the public about those living with Autism as well as critical for social awareness and for the overall health of the community.

We’ve been calling autism a disease for decades. That’s one mistake. We might have viewed it as a major disability of which an increasing number of children are “victims”. That’s another mistake. Everybody has a different brain, hence the term neurodiversity. Whilst people with typical brains make up the majority of the population, we should definitely encourage the acceptance of individuals who have variations on this, including those on the autism spectrum. The man who discovered autism, Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger, described it as being a different way of thinking that brings blessings as well as hardships. A different psychiatrist, Leo Kanner, claimed credit for Asperger’s discovery and introduced a harsher view of autism, which has subsequently paved the way for decades of brutal

The Gramscian theory is that, “The dominant classes use mass culture in their response to this struggle by constructing these other groups into target markets and consumers who are addressed by the culture and advertising industries according to their 'demographic' characteristics their social class, their disposable income, their age, sex and so on.” (Goldberg, 2001) The media in all its forms helps to “convey information and influence its consumers on a wide scale and is not without concerns, including potentially widespread biases.” (Maich, 2014) The stereotypes stereotypes produced by both written and viewed media helps to solidify what society believes should be the “norm” for the person on the autism spectrum. “Socio-emotional aspects of care and self-awareness in mediated depictions of characters with ASD are minimal, and are not geared to assisting children in finding their place in the world.” (Maich, 2014) As you read literature, many of the stories contain characters on the spectrum who live in families who are accepting of their behaviours and needs and fail to really identify the problems that are inherent in the broader context of society. Children’s literature such as Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko tend to sanitize the difficulties of being autistic by containing the contact

The dominant model of disability for the majority of the 20th century was the medical model. The medical model’s emphasis is on impairment; this is the cause of the disadvantage disabled individuals face and therefore the site of interventions (Crow, 1996). It is based in the biomedical and clinical. It views disability as a personal tragedy, an idea which is often implicit in work around disability based on the medical model. (Oliver, 1990).

Under the Medical Model, disabled people are defined by their illness or medical condition. The Medical Model regards disability as an individual problem.  It promotes the view of a disabled person as dependent and needing to be cured or cared for, and justifies the way in which disabled people have been systematically excluded from society.  The disabled person is the problem, not society.  Control resides firmly with professionals; choices for the individual are limited to the options provided and approved by the 'helping' expert.