The medical model is presented as viewing disability as a problem of the person, directly caused by disease, trauma, or other health condition which therefore requires sustained medical care provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals.
The medical model can address 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.
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.
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 an attribute of an individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are created by the social environment. 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 participation of people with disabilities in all areas of social life.
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.
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.
A better model of disability, in short, is one that synthesizes what is true in the medical and social models, without making the mistake each makes in reducing the whole, complex notion of disability to one of its aspects.
The economic model of disability defines disability by a person’s inability to participate in work. It also assesses the degree to which impairment affects an individual’s productivity and the economic consequences for the individual, employer and the state. Such consequences include loss of earnings for and payment for assistance by the individual; lower profit margins for the employer; and state welfare payments. This model is directly related to the charity 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The sense of belonging felt by one group of people can be counterbalanced by a feeling of exclusion by people who don’t fit the group’s expectations.
The charity model regards people with disabilities as unfortunate and in need of assistance from the outside, with those providing charity viewed as benevolent contributors to a needy population.
The charity model can inspire people to contribute their time and / or resources to provide assistance when it is genuinely needed.
The charity model can be condescending toward people with disabilities, who may come to resent the feeling that they are the object of pity by other people, and that they must depend on accepting or cultivating this pity on a continual basis. The charity model often focuses on short-term, immediate needs, often at the expense of more comprehensive, and ultimately more effective, long-term solutions.
Blindness is a sensory disability involving nearly complete vision loss. Some people are completely blind, without the ability to see anything. Others can perceive light versus dark, or the general shapes of large objects, but cannot read text or recognize people by sight.
Color blindness is a sensory disability that impairs a person’s ability to distinguish certain color combinations. The most common forms of color-blindness affect an individual’s ability to distinguish reds and greens, although other colors may be affected.
Red-green color vision defects are the most common form of color vision deficiency. This condition affects males much more often than females. Among populations with Northern European ancestry, it occurs in about 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 females.
Blue-yellow color vision defects affect males and females equally. This condition occurs in fewer than 1 in 10,000 people worldwide.
Low vision is uncorrectable vision loss that interferes with daily activities. It is better defined in terms of function, rather than numerical test results. A person with low vision will typically need magnification to see well enough to read or discern other details. Some people with low vision experience low contrast, and therefore benefit from high contrast text and graphics. Some experience color deficiencies, which means they may not be able to see the difference between certain colors.
Deafness is the total or near total loss of hearing. A person who is deaf or hard of hearing has difficulty with sounds, including the audio component of multimedia materials. Many, but not all, people who are deaf know sign language. Often sign language is the first language — and therefore the most comfortable native language — of those who are born deaf. They may feel less comfortable reading printed or digital text because it is a foreign language for them. By way of contrast, those who lose their hearing later in life may never learn sign language, or if they learn it, they may not feel as comfortable speaking in sign, and may prefer text.
Hard of hearing (HOH) refers to people with hearing loss ranging from mild to severe, who still have some useful hearing, and may communicate through sign language, spoken language, or both understand spoken language in some situations, with or without amplification. Most HOH people can use the phone and use hearing aids.
Auditory processing disorder (APD) is often described as greater than expected difficulty hearing and understanding speech even though no measurable hearing loss exists. APD is often confused with other disorders such as ADHD, language impairment, learning disabilities, social and emotional delays or cognitive deficits.
APD is not the inability to hear. It’s the inability to interpret, organize, or analyze what’s heard. All the parts of the hearing pathway are working well. But parts of the brain are not.
Deaf-Blindness is a sensory disability that includes both deafness and blindness. Most people who are deafblind are not completely deaf nor completely blind, and retain some hearing and sight capability.
Articulation disorder is a speech disorder involving difficulties in producing specific types of sounds. Articulation disorders often involve substitution of one sound for another, slurring of speech, or indistinct speech.
Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. Aphasia is always due to injury to the brain-most commonly from a stroke, particularly in older individuals. But brain injuries resulting in aphasia may also arise from head trauma, from brain tumors, or from infections.
There are various types of aphasia. A person with aphasia may not be able to recognize words or understand what is being said, be unable to speak or have difficulty saying what they mean, difficulty forming sentences and omitting words.
Having no speech, or mutism, is an inability to speak and can be caused by damage to the brain and / or speech muscles, by emotional or psychological reasons, or by a combination of causes.
Intellectual disability is characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning (reasoning, learning, problem solving) and in adaptive behavior, which covers a range of everyday social and practical skills.
Dyslexia is a learning disability that impairs a person’s ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. Reading disabilities may include an inability to perceive text or to process the meaning of words, phrases and ideas. Dyslexia can be inherited in some families, and recent studies have identified a number of genes that may predispose an individual to developing dyslexia.
It is estimated that between 5-10% of the population has dyslexia.
Math and computational disabilities impact a person’s ability to learn and communicate math. Dyscalculia involves an inability to understand arithmetic and how to calculate. Common signs of dyscalculia include:
ADHD is a developmental problem characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Children with ADHD are easily distracted by sights and sounds in their environment. Symptoms usually appear by age 7. While people do not outgrow this condition, they do learn to adapt.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a range of conditions characterised by some degree of impaired social behaviour, communication and language, and a narrow range of interests and activities that are both unique to the individual and carried out repetitively.
Nonverbal Learning Disability is very much like Asperger Syndrome, in which people with the syndrome have normal intelligence and language development, but have trouble with social skills, sensory input, and making transitions. AS and NLD are generally thought to describe the same kind of disorder but to differ in severity, with AS describing more severe symptoms.
Fine motor skills are the intricate and detailed movements of the hand and wrist needed to manipulate, control and use objects, produce neat, legible handwriting, and dress independently. Some examples include difficulty tying shoelaces, inability to do up buttons or zippers, scribbly drawing, difficulty using a keyboard, poor handwriting, taking a long time to pick up small objects, manipulating objects in hand, or using both hands at the same time.
Ambulation is defined as the ability to walk from place to place independently with or without an assistive device.
Muscle fatigue is often defined as an overwhelming sense of tiredness, lack of energy and feeling of exhaustion, and it relates to a difficulty in performing voluntary tasks. Muscle fatigue can occur anywhere on the body. An initial sign of this condition is muscle weakness, and other symptoms associated with muscle fatigue include soreness, localized pain, shortness of breath, muscle twitching, trembling, a weak grip, muscle cramps.
Body size or shape disabilities are disabilities caused by a variety of disorders that affect a person’s stature, proportions or shape. Examples include acromegaly, dwarfism, rheumatoid arthritis, and obesity. Characteristics depend on the cause of disability. Orthopedic conditions, such as arthritis and joint mobility, are frequently associated with the underlying cause. Other examples of co-occurring conditions include muscle weakness and fatigue, hearing loss, vision loss, cardiopulmonary disorders, and diabetes.
A seizure is a sudden, uncontrolled electrical disturbance in the brain. It can cause changes in behavior, movements or feelings, and in levels of consciousness. If a person has two or more seizures or a tendency to have recurrent seizures, they have epilepsy.
Photosensitive epilepsy is a condition in which people affected have seizures triggered by flashing or flickering lights, or patterns.
Different people will be affected by lights at different flash or flicker rates. Lights that flash or flicker between 16 and 25 times a second are the most likely to trigger seizures. But some people are sensitive to rates as low as 3 or as high as 60 a second.
Different people may be affected by different types of pattern. Those patterns with a high contrast or some that move are more likely to trigger seizures. Some video games often contain potentially provocative light stimulation.
Social Anxiety Disorder is a disorder in which a person feels anxiety or fear in certain or all social situations, such as meeting new people, dating, being on a job interview, answering a question in class, or having to talk to a cashier in a store. The person is afraid they will be humiliated, judged, and rejected.
Emotional disturbance is defined as a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:
Behavioral disorders involve a pattern of disruptive behaviors in children that last for at least 6 months and cause problems in school, at home and in social situations.
Multiple or compound disabilities describe the phenomenon of more than one disability being present within a person at the same time. They can include physical, mental, or a combination of types. In terms of education, this category is used for students with the most profound disabilities. It does not include deaf-blindness.
Text alternatives convey the purpose of an image or function to provide an equivalent user experience.
Well-written text transcripts containing the correct sequence of any auditory or visual information provide a basic level of accessibility and facilitate the production of captions and audio descriptions.
Meeting this requirement allows content to be correctly read aloud, enlarged, or adapted to meet the needs and preferences of different people.
Meeting this requirement helps separate foreground from background, to make important information more distinguishable.
Many people do not use the mouse and rely on the keyboard to interact with the Web. This requires keyboard access to all functionality, including form controls, input, and other user interface components.
Some people need more time than others to read and use the content. For instance, some people require more time to type text, understand instructions, operate controls, or to otherwise complete tasks on a website.
Content that flashes at certain rates or patterns can cause photosensitive reactions, including seizures.
Well organized content helps users to orient themselves and to navigate effectively.
Meeting this requirement makes the content easier to use for many people with a wide range of abilities using a wide range of devices.
Content authors need to ensure that text content is readable and understandable to the broadest audience possible, including when it is read aloud by text-to-speech.
Many people rely on predictable user interfaces and are disoriented or distracted by inconsistent appearance or behavior.
Forms and other interaction can be confusing or difficult to use for many people, and, as a result, they may be more likely to make mistakes.
Robust content is compatible with different browsers, assistive technologies, and other user agents.
Information that is not attended to, that does not engage learners’ cognition, is in fact inaccessible. Teachers devote considerable effort to recruiting learner attention and engagement. But learners differ significantly in what attracts their attention and engages their interest.
When motivated to do so, many learners can regulate their attention and affect in order to sustain the effort and concentration that such learning will require. However, learners differ considerably in their ability to self-regulate in this way.
The ability to self-regulate—to strategically modulate one’s emotional reactions or states in order to be more effective at coping and engaging with the environment—is a critical aspect of human development.
It is important to ensure that key information is equally perceptible to all learners by providing the same information through different modalities (e.g., through vision, hearing, or touch); and by providing information in a format that will allow for adjustability by the user (e.g., text that can be enlarged, sounds that can be amplified).
Inequalities arise when information is presented to all learners through a single form of representation. An important instructional strategy is to ensure that alternative representations are provided not only for accessibility, but for clarity and comprehensibility across all learners.
The purpose of education is not to make information accessible, but rather to teach learners how to transform accessible information into useable knowledge. Proper design and presentation of information—the responsibility of any curriculum or instructional methodology—can provide the scaffolds necessary to ensure that all learners have access to knowledge.
A textbook or workbook in a print format provides limited means of navigation or physical interaction (e.g., turning pages, handwriting in spaces provided). It is important to provide materials with which all learners can interact. Properly designed curricular materials provide a seamless interface with common assistive technologies.
It is important to provide alternative modalities for expression, both to the level the playing field among learners and to allow the learner to appropriately (or easily) express knowledge, ideas and concepts in the learning environment.
1946: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, it set out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected. People with disabilities are not listed among the groups protected against discrimination in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
2006: The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as “objects” of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as “subjects” with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.
First convention that calls out specifically people with disabilities. Also specifically calls out assistive technologies and Universal Design.
A law created to allow people blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled to consume content that was in the written form. Making sure books were accessible from the digital medium. Main goal is to create set of mandatory limitations and exceptions for the benefit of the blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union brings together the fundamental rights of everyone living in the EU. It was introduced to bring consistency and clarity to the rights established at different times and in different ways in individual EU Member States.
Although the Charter does not specify disability, Article 2 recognizes the rights of all persons.
The objectives of this Convention are to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities and to promote their full integration into society.
The United Kingdom passed the Equality Act 2010 in order to bring together formerly disparate anti-discrimination laws and strengthen them, in order to provide people with improved protections from discrimination in the workplace and society. ADA equivalent in UK.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that puts in place protections for people with disabilities, similar to those provided to on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunities for people with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications.
The Ontarians with Disabilities Act, with ongoing refinements, ensures the rights of people with disabilities to equal opportunities and to be free from discrimination. A regional piece of disability right legislation.
A law signed in 2010 that increased the access of persons with disabilities to modern communications by making sure accessibility laws enacted in 1080s 1990s were brought to date with 21st century technologies.
An American law that made it illegal to discriminate against people with disabilities. In 2013 an update was added to the law regarding accessibility of airline’s websites.
2013: Law created to eliminate barriers in technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disability and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. Companies that do business with government needs to follow it.
2018: A European procurement law that specifies the functional accessibility requirements applicable to ICT products and services.