The Medical Model of disability
According to Scambler (2008:43), numerous medical analysts perceive this model as an antecedent of the social model of disability. This model exemplifies disability as a disease or a state of abnormality. This means a person lacks the normal features, which characterize other human beings. In reference to this model, disabled people face two significant problems, which incorporate loss of bodily or cognitive impairment together with work-related disability. Apparently, these are the most important features and values of human life. These aspects play a vital role in ensuring individuals earn a living. Consequently, this is a discrepancy model because it considers disability as a problem. Furthermore, it focuses on an individual’s bodily or psychological impairment.
It is evident that this perspective insists that disability exists in an individual; furthermore, it is subject to psychoanalysis of impairment. It further depicts that the state in which an individual performs his duties without impairment is a criterion used in determining normalcy. Medical analysts and practitioners use this model when defining disability. This is because they believe it has all the relevant features and components critical in tackling concerns.
This model gives the notion that disabled individuals are mentally and physically inferior to normal individuals. This is because they are unable to accomplish other tasks as normal people. Furthermore, they might have some features that are deformed or under formed. These include limbs or their intellectual capacity. Most importantly, the absence of normal features makes them inferior to other individuals. It is also evident that this model perceives disabled people as individuals who cannot make decisions. Thus, they need constant supervision and guidance. The medical model also perceives disability as a calamity that happens to individuals. It defines disability as a misfortune that comes randomly to human beings. Most importantly, this model presupposes that there is an intent condition of normality. According to this model, the purpose of returning an individual to a state of normality is the most significant component of the rehabilitation program. It is a fact that the medical model does not give the disabled and their families an opportunity to make decisions in the community. Thus, they remain spectators of the whole process (Ralston, 2009:35).
Negative aspects
Brown, Miller & Eason (2006:463) depict that despite the fact that the medical fraternity has applauded this model, it has faced criticism for its negative impacts on society. The groups, which have criticized the model intensively, are disability movements. This is because they claim that the model is misleading in a number of issues, which it has highlighted. This has drawn the attention of normal people who are activists of the disabled. Most importantly, it is subject to scrutiny by numerous human rights groups since they find it offensive to the disabled community. The primary criticism of the model is that it fails to present the social-cultural background in which the classification of impairment happens. This is an essential component when describing impairments among disabled people. Thus, it is appropriate for the model to provide such aspects when referring to the disabled. This model also leads to a negative impact on the lives of the disabled and their families because it perceives disability as a biological construct. It is evident that many people especially the disabled perceive their condition as social and not biological as portrayed in the model.
Furthermore, the model gives a picture that disabled people are feeble and reliant. This reveals that they cannot perform duties on their own unless under supervision and guidance. The disability movements condemn this notion of the model referring to it as an abuse to the disabled people. It is noteworthy that the religious groups also share the same sentiments. As a result, they criticize the medical model since it promotes discrimination against individuals with impairments. The involvement of the religious groups in criticizing the features of this model further dents its prospects. An additional misleading component of the model, which culminates in negative impacts to the disabled, is the fact that the bodily impairment of such persons dictates the life they live.
In most cases, it describes their lives as poverty-ridden and engulfed with problems and difficulties. This perception makes other individuals perceive the disabled as a miserable group of humanity. This feature makes the disabled discouraged and unmotivated since they find themselves secluded. This further increases the level of discrimination against them. This model has gone to the extent of perceiving the disabled as non-influential in decision-making. This clearly means that their opinions are unwanted in case decisions need to be made. It is a fact that this notion has influenced their lives unenthusiastically. This especially happens at the workplace where decision-making happens without consultation. In instances where they submit their opinions, those in charge consider them as irrelevant (Fawcett, 2007:49).
The Social Model of disability
According to Barnes, Mercer, & BASW (2006:82), this model gives the socio-political aspect when describing disability in society. This model seems to be the complete opposite of the medical model, which insists on mental and physical impairments. It is evident that the social model focuses on the unfavorable and suppressive arrangement of society. As a result, it gives more emphasis on the social negative approaches that disabled individuals face in their lives. The model insists on issues relating to society’s failure to adjust to the needs of the disabled people within it. Additionally, it portrays another perspective whereby the impaired individuals are unable to acclimatize to the demands of society, which they live.
Most importantly, this model places disability in the exterior milieu and not a person’s mental or physical impairment. In describing disability as a social product, it shifts the debate from medical domination portrayed by the medical model to political domination. This means that it focuses on the influence of society on disabled individuals. It affirms that the response and reaction of society towards individuals with impairments determines their disability. On the other hand, the retort and feedback of the disabled people towards society reveal their impairments. Most prominently, it defines disability as a letdown by society in providing sufficient and apposite services to people with impairments. This means that the requirements of disabled people are inadequate in a societal setting. Thus, the disabled feel dissatisfied with the societal conditions in which they reside. This model perceives disability as socio-cultural and not biological impairment (Rix, Nind, & Sheehy, 2010:119).
This model further insists that irrespective of the societal settings in which disabled people live, they normally face subjugation and negative social feelings from society. These tend to demoralize them; thus, making them inferior to normal individuals. In addition, such incidences undermine their personality and position as equal members of society or citizens of a nation. Although the disabled seem oppressed, it is a fact that in every society there is competition between two groups. These groups are dominant and inferior, whereby they compete for recognition and status. Thus, this competition brings about conflict between these two groups (Bjarnason, 2004:28).
This theory insists that Finklestein is among the first individuals to develop a materialistic elucidation of disability. He depicted that history can be divided into three phases where the manner in which people with an impairment are socially included or excluded differ. The first phase is the period before European industrialization. During this time, there was limited social morbidity, as disabled people were included in communal activities such as the production of products and employment. The second phase is during industrialization whereby disabled people could not secure active employment. This is because they were not able to perform optimally in accordance with the factory-set standards. This resulted in their separation from the mainstream social and economic activities. Finklestein further insists that the third face has just begun. During this time, the disabled people will attain liberation from the current social oppression they are undergoing. It is noteworthy that the establishment of the factory system brought about the marginalization of individuals with physical and cognitive impairments. These people seem secluded through the introduction of isolated institutions. These include special schools for disabled individuals (Tyano, Keren, Herrman, & Cox, 2010: 322).
Negative aspects
According to McLean & Williamson (2007:24), it is a fact that the social model of disability has brought about a shift in the manner in which people understood this concept. It is evident that this theory claims that the genesis of subjugation originates from attitudes. Thus, it is hard to establish their social setting and comprehend how this results in repressive acts. Additionally, this model does not examine the socio-political background in which traits and ethics arise and their influence in causing oppressive conduct. Furthermore, it tends to focus more on the social and political discrimination of the disabled. Thus, it fails to address the experience faced by individuals who pose these impairments. This theory fails to insist on the fact that the physical and emotional difficulties experienced by the disabled have a great impact on their lives.
The theory adopts the western notion that states that execution of rights and decision-making happens according to the wishes of individuals. This empowerment notion is greatly condemned, declined, and opposed by the disability movements. This is because it is against the accepted social traditions and practices. These critics of this model insist that a decision is supposed to be made collectively and not by an individual. This is because every member of society whether disabled or not should present their opinions for consideration. Thus, the issue of making decisions in accordance with an individual’s preference is unacceptable. It is a fact that if this notion is adopted then the disabled will be discriminated against during decision-making procedures (Barry & Yuill, 2003:120).
Combining the medical and social models of disability
These theories tend to be similar in a number of ways. It is evident that the dissimilar sets of postulations for both the medical and social models comprise an inside rational and articulate structure, and from this, each obtains a reasoned set of policy recommendations for the process and provision of disability services. Nevertheless, there is a third option, which merges the postulations concerning the nature of the societal alteration, advancement, and individual life. Such a fusion has at least the latent to offer a new and potentially inventive structure by which further discuss concerning models of disability and so, to create an inventive loom to the provision of disability services. An individual’s personal life, her place in society, and existence probability are neither wholly resolute by inborn biological distinctiveness and aptitudes, nor are they entirely prearranged by a societal, monetary, and political arrangement of society. Both theories presume that all human beings are fundamentally unreceptive, in the sagacity that they are incapable to persuade the path that their life will take (Waddell, 2004:276).
According to Kirch (2008:718), this arrangement offers no authority for the originality that is intrinsic inside all human beings, as well as the indeterminacy in the human state. Conversely, it is upheld here that personal life and the dynamics of social alteration are the creation of the incessant interactive association linking a person’s naturally gifted distinctiveness and the social setting in which he resides, which is itself determined by social, political, and economic aspects. There is thus a mutually dependent and lively liaison between a person and his society. Such an approach encourages the incorporation of biological and social aspects in shaping the human state in which neither of these two issues gets dominance from an ontological perception, but they relate interactively.
Waddell (2004:276) highlights that both theories tend to describe the position of disabled individuals in society. According to the theories, disabled people face discrimination. Furthermore, many people perceive them as unable to take care of themselves. They are not included in major decision-making procedures that take place in society. The theories further insist that the surrounding influences the lives of the disabled. It is apparent that both theories do not address the shortcomings that the disabled face. Instead, they add challenges to their lives through their description of the disabled.
Reference List
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Barry, A. & Yuill, C. 2003, Understanding health: a sociological introduction, California, SAGE.
Bjarnason, D. 2004, New voices from Iceland: disability and young adulthood, New York, Nova Publishers.
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Kirch, W. 2008, Encyclopedia of Public Health. New York, Springer.
McLean, S. & Williamson, L. 2007, Impairment and disability: law and ethics at the beginning and end of life. New York, Routledge.
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Scambler, G. 2008, Sociology as applied to medicine, Philadelphia, Elsevier Health Sciences.
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