Models of Disability Studies
MODELS OF DISABILITY STUDIES | MORAL-RELIGIOUS | BIO-MEDICAL | FUNCTIONAL | ENVIRON-MENTAL | SOCIO-POLITICAL | DEFINITION | Views disability as a punishment inflicted upon an individual or family by an external force. It can be due to misdemeanors committed by the disabled person, someone in the family or community group, or forbears. Birth conditions can be due to actions committed in a previous reincarnation. People are morally responsible for their own disability. | Focuses on purely biological factors, physical processes that affect health, such as the biochemistry, physiology and pathology of a condition. Experts tend to analyze and look for biophysical or genetic malfunctions. The focus is on objective laboratory tests rather than the subjective feelings or history of the patient. According to this model, good health is the freedom from pain, disease, or defect. | Similar to the medical model; it regards the person with a disability as in need of services from rehabilitation professional who can provide training, therapy, counseling or other services to make up for the deficiency caused by the disability. | Disability was defined as a function of the environmental and social constraints. A disability would not be a disability if the barriers of the society in which we live in did not exist. | This model explains that attitudes, economic, legal and policy barriers are the real reasons that people with disabilities have difficulties participating as full members of society. The emphasis has shifted from dependence to independence, as people with disability have sought a political voice commanding human and civil rights, and become politically active against social forces of ableism. | PERIOD IN HISTORY | Ancient era | 1800s | 1900s | 1960s | 1960s | ETIOLOGY | In a Western Judea-Christian society, the roots of understanding bodily difference have been grounded in Biblical references, the consequent responses and impacts of the Christian church, and the