top of page

Defining Disability

Disability is not a universal term. 

Image by C. Elyse

Much of my freelance writing work focuses the spectrum of disability including mental health conditions, cognitive disorders, learning disabilities, pain conditions, and physical disabilities. I write evidence-based disease and disorder overview articles that include topics like diagnosis, signs and symptoms, causes, treatments, coping, and resources. I take an interdisciplinary approach to writing about disability, incorporating different models of disability into my work. 

​

Four Models of Disability

  • medical model

  • social and human rights model

  • biopsychical model

  • structural model

​

Let's dive a bit deeper to understand the differences. 

​

Medical Model 

  • roots in rehabilitation medicine

  • focuses on disability as impairment 

  • stages of adjustment (shock, denial, grief, loss, reconciliation, acceptance)

  • individual interventions through medical and other professionals (treatments, coping)

  • goal is to cure or resolve impairment
     

Social and Human Rights Model

  • challenges disability as individual physical or mental problem

  • sees external factors (unemployment, cost of living) as primary cause of problem

  • disability as social oppression rooted in social environment

  • goal is to remove barriers through systematic interventions 

​

Biopsychosocial Model ​

  • ​integrates medical and social/human rights models

  • emphasis on health and functioning rather than disability

  • three levels of functioning: body, whole person, whole person in social context

  • goal is to resolve impairment and remove institutional barriers

​

Structural Model

  • combines previous three models 

  • connects personal to socio-political 

  • includes approaches like individual and family therapy, group work, ad community organizing

  • goal is personal empowerment, independent living, and long-term solutions


Information adapted from Social Welfare in Canada: Inclusion,, Equity, Social Justice by Steven Hick and Jackie Stokes, Fourth Edition, Chapter 11: The Welfare and Well-Being of Persons with Disabilities.

​

bottom of page