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Disability

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This article is about the concept of a disability. For the poem by Wilfred Owen, see Disabled (poem). For the United States government financial assistance program, see Social Security Disability Insurance.
A parking zone for the disabled.

A disability is a significantly restricted (or absent) ability, relative to an individual or group norm. The term is often used to refer to individual functioning, including physical impairment, cognitive impairment or mental disorder. This usage is associated with a medical model of disability. By contrast, a human rights or social model focuses on ability as an interaction between a person and their environment, highlighting the role of a society in labelling, causing or maintaining disability within that society, including through attitudes or accessibility favoring the majority.

Common usage, which can be controversial, refers to 'a person with a disability' or a person who is 'disabled' or, more controversially, 'handicapped'.

Rights and perspectives

On December 13, 2006, the UN formally agreed a Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons, the first human rights treaty of the 21st century, to protect and enhance the rights and opportunities of the world's estimated 650 million disabled people.[1] Countries that sign up to the convention would be required to adopt national laws, and remove old ones, so that persons with disabilities would, for example, have equal rights to education, employment, and cultural life; the right to own and inherit property; not be discriminated against in marriage, children, etc; not be unwilling subjects in medical experiments.

Many books on disability and disability rights point out that 'disabled' is an identity that one is not necessarily born with, as disabilities are more often acquired than congenital. Some disability rights activists use an acronym TAB, Temporarily Able-Bodied, as a reminder that many people will develop disabilities at some point in their lives, due to accidents, illness (physical, mental or emotional), or late-emerging effects of genetics.

Frank Bowe argued in Handicapping America (1978) that the real issue is the societal response to disability: if a community allows physical, architectural, transportation, and other barriers to remain in place, society is creating handicaps that oppress individuals with disabilities. If, on the other hand, a community removes those barriers, persons with disabilities can function at much higher levels. In simple terms, it is not the inability to walk or inability to sit that prevents a person entering a building unaided but the existence of stairs or the lack of benches to lie down, that are inaccessible to a wheelchair-user or a person with sitting disability. In other words, 'disability' is socially constructed. The 'social model' is often contrasted with the 'medical model' which sees 'disability' as synonymous with 'impairment.'[1]

Current issues and debates surrounding 'disability' include social and political rights, societal inclusivity and citizenship. In developed countries the debate has moved beyond a concern about the perceived cost of maintaining dependent people with a disability to the struggle to find effective ways of ensuring people with a disability can participate in and contribute to society in all spheres of life.

An approach that has led to tangible improvements in the lives of people with disabilities in some regions has been the Independent Living Movement. The term "Independent Living" was taken from 1959 California legislation that enabled people who had acquired a disability due to polio to leave hospital wards and move back into the community with the help of cash benefits for the purchase of personal assistance with the activities of daily living. With its origins in the US civil rights and consumer movements of the late 1960s, the movement and its philosophy have since spread to other continents influencing people's self-perception, their ways of organizing themselves and their countries' social policy.

The disability rights movement, led by end-users rather than families and other carers, began in the 1970s. This self-advocacy is largely responsible for the shift toward independent living and accessibility.

Language and terminology

Handicapped Accessible sign.

The American Psychological Association style guide devotes a large section to the discussion of individuals with disabilities, and states that in professional writing following this style, the person should come first, and nominal forms describing the disability should be used so that the disability is being described, but is not modifying the person. For instance: people with Down syndrome, a man with schizophrenia, and a girl with paraplegia. (This applies only to English and possibly other prepositional languages, not postpositional languages.) It also states that a person's adaptive equipment should be described functionally as something that assists a person, not as something that limits a person (e.g., "A woman who uses a wheelchair" rather than "in" it or "confined" to it - she leaves it at the very least for sleeping and bathing).

Famous people with disabilities

Many people with disabilities have contributed to society. These include:

  • Self Advocate Singer-Composer Ian Dury (UK, 1942-2000)

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Disability.


References

  • Frank Bowe, Handicapping America:Barriers to disabled people, Harper & Row, 1978 ISBN 0-06-010422-8
  • Encyclopedia of disability, general ed. Gary L. Albrecht, Thousand Oaks, Calif. [u.a.] : SAGE Publ., 2005
  • David Johnstone, An Introduction to Disability Studies, 2001, 2nd edition, ISBN 1-85346-726-X
  • Michael Oliver, The Politics of Disablement, St. Martin's Press 1997, ISBN 0-333-43293-2
  • Tom Shakespeare, Genetic Politics: from Eugenics to Genome, with Anne Kerr , New Clarion Press, 1999, ISBN 1-873797-25-7
  • Kaushik, R.,1999, " Access Denied: Can we overcome disabling attitudes ," Museum International (UNESCO) , Vol. 51, No. 3, p. 48-52.
  1. ^ ENABLE website UN section on disability
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