Evolution of Disability Models.

This following diagram borrows from a series of posts via Drake Music and information published
on Disabled World about how we understand and have previously framed disability throughout history – from outdated models to the current model upheld by disability rights activists -and the waythat they
have shaped the experiences of disabled people in the future.

For more details about the evolution of the models please visit;

• www.drakemusic.org/blog/hdekretser/understanding-disability/
  
• www.disabled-world.com/definitions/disability-models.php 
• www.scielo.org.za/pdf/hts/v74n1/06.pdf

*Please note, these may not be in the chronological order due to the lack of resources surrounding the earlier models. Shades of Noir have tried to organise and make as digestible as possible for our readers*

The Religious Model of Disability

The oldest model of disability and is found in a number of religious traditions. The religious model of disability is a pre-modern paradigm that views disability as an act of a god, usually a punishment for some sin committed of some unknown action that caused their impairment. by the disabled individual or their family.

The Moral Model of Disability

Refers to the attitude that people are morally responsible for their own disability. The moral/religious model of disability is the oldest model of disability and is found in a number of religious traditions, including the Judeo-Christian tradition. Up until the mid 1800s, most people thought that having a disability was a punishment from God.

The Religious Model of Disability

The oldest model of disability and is found in a number of religious traditions. The religious model of disability is a pre-modern paradigm that views disability as an act of a god, usually a punishment for some sin committed of some unknown action that caused their impairment. by the disabled individual or their family.

The Eugenics Model

A framework that came to characterise disability as we understand it today in the modern, Western world. The base logic of the theory of eugenics is that people are either fit or unfit. To be unfit is to be genetically inferior. The theory posits that efforts should be made to decrease all elements of genetic inferiority from the human race until they no longer exist. This categorisation laid the foundations for how we understand people to be disabled or non-disabled today.

The Biomedical Model of Disability or ’Health’

The biomedical model of health is one of the most dominant in the western world and focuses on health purely in terms of biological factors.

The Biopsychosocial Model of Disability

Championed and developed by the private health insurance sector in America and the UK. This Model re-framed disability away from a Social Model understanding back to an individualist, quasi-medical and psychological approach. This Model seeks to put the responsibility for Disabled people’s situation back onto the individual Disabled person and seeks to strip Disabled people of rights and support.

The Medical Model of Disability

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. In the medical model, management of the disability is aimed at a ‘cure’ or the individual’s adjustment and behavioural change that would lead to an ‘almost-cure’ or effective cure.

The Professional Model of Disability

The Professional ‘or Expert’ Model of Disability can be seen as an offshoot of the medical model. Within its framework, professionals follow a process of identifying the impairment and its limitations (using the medical model), and taking the necessary action to improve the position of the disabled person.

The Charity Model

The Charity ‘or tragedy’ Model of Disability depicts disabled people as victims of circumstance who are deserving of pity. This, along with the medical model, are the models most used by non-disabled people to define and explain disability.

The Economic Model of Disability

It 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. This model is directly related to the charity/tragedy model.

The Identity Model

The Identity ‘or Affirmation’ Model of Disability is closely related to the Social Model of Disability, yet possesses a fundamental difference; it ‘claims disability as a positive identity’ (Brewer et al. 2012:5). ‘While the identity model owes much to the social model, it is less interested in the ways environments, policies, and institutions disable people, and more interested in forging a positive definition of disability identity based on experiences and circumstances that have created a recognisable minority group called ‘people with disabilities’ (Brewer et al. 2012:5).

The Social Model

The Social Model of Disability sees disability as a socially created problem and a matter of the full integration of individuals into society. 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 participation of people with disabilities in all areas of social life. From this perspective, equal access for someone with an impairment/disability is a human rights issue of major concern.

The Affirmation Model of Disability

This model is essentially a non-tragic view of disability and impairment which encompasses positive social identities for disabled people grounded in the benefits of lifestyle and life experience of being impaired and disabled. This view has arisen in direct opposition to the dominant personal tragedy model of disability and impairment and builds on the liberatory imperative of the social model. Rooting their idea in the values of Disability Pride and perspectives emerging from the disability arts movement, Swain and French identified the affirmation model as a critique of the personal tragedy model corresponding to the social model as a critique of the medical model.

Minority Model of Disability

The Minority ‘or Sociopolitical’ Model of Disability adds to the social model and posits that disability is imposed on top of impairment via negative attitudes and social barriers; suggesting that people with disabilities constitute an entitative (possessing material existence), a social category that shares in common the experience of disability.

The Market Model of Disability

The Market Model of Disability is a minority rights and consumerist model of disability that recognises people with disabilities and their ‘stakeholders’ as representing a large group of consumers, employees and voters. This model looks to personal identity to define disability and empowers people to chart their own destiny in everyday life, with a particular focus on economic empowerment. This model states that, due to the size of the demographic, companies and governments will serve the desires, pushed by demand as the message becomes prevalent in the cultural mainstream.

The ‘New’ Radical Model

The Radical Model is, arguably, the next frontier of the Disability Movement. It builds out from the political identity of the Social Model and argues that we should not distinguish between impairment and disability.

The Spectrum Model of Disability

The Spectrum Model of Disability refers to the range of visibility, audibility and sensibility under which mankind functions. The model asserts that disability does not necessarily mean a reduced spectrum of operations.

The Relational Model of Disability

In the late 1960s Nirje, a Swedish social theorist, formulated the principles of normalisation emphasising strong support of deinstitutionalisation, recognition of the diversity of the human condition, and belief that people with disability and ‘normal’ (ordinary) life, including access to the built environment, are not mutually exclusive. This work represents part of an emerging grand idea of social inclusion for people with disability in the community and within the neighborhood (Nirje [1969] 1994). Following on in this continuum of Nordic interest in people – environment interaction, a new disability model developed around the end of 1990s – early 2000s, and has subsequently been recognised as the (Nordic) Relational Model of Disability (Goodley 2011) – (Models of Disability and Human Rights: Informing the Improvement of Built Environment Accessibility for People with Disability at Neighborhood Scale?)

The Socially Adapted Model of Disability

The Social Adapted Model of Disability states although a person’s disability poses some limitations in an able-bodied society, oftentimes the surrounding society and environment are more limiting than the disability itself.

The Empowering Model of Disability

The Empowering Model of Disability allows for the person with a disability and his/her family to decide the course of their treatment and what services they wish to benefit from. This, in turn, turns the professional into a service provider whose role is to offer guidance and carry out the client’s decisions.

The Legitimacy Model of Disability

The Legitimacy Model of Disability views disability as a value-based determination about which explanations for the atypical are legitimate for membership in the disability category.

The Human Rights ‘Based’ Model of Disability

The Human Rights Model of Disability evolved shortly following legislation enacted in several countries in the mid 1980’s which embraced rights-based discourse rather than custodial discourse and seeks to address the issues of social justice and discrimination. However, while the rights-based model of disability has helped to develop additional entitlements, it has not changed the way in which the idea of disability is constructed.

Negative Attributes:
‘community’ (allusive definition), ‘social’ ‘bad genes’ or ‘abnormality’