Disabilities

Perspectives on Disability

Disability has been conceptualized in terms of type, function, and social construction. Most commonly, perhaps, disability has been construed as a type of limitation with particular characteristics. The four major types are: (1) physical (e.g., spinal cord injury, polio); (2) sensory (e.g., deafness, blindness); (3) cognitive (e.g., learning disability, intellectual disability); and (4) emotional (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder). A full typology would indicate causes, characteristics, courses, and outcomes for each type of disability and would help to identify the kind of disability one has. Although the medical profession and others have found this approach a useful way to organize knowledge about disability, typologies have not always been able to live up to their promise of providing such information, nor have they always been able to capture the range and kind of disabilities human beings experience.

A second approach is functional. Here the goal is to specify the actual impairments the disabling condition imposes. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act includes a definition of disability as a condition that results in an individual being unable to perform basic life functions independently, such as walking and bathing. This approach is valuable for specifying the nature and threshold level of impairment involved with the disability. The U.S. legal system sometimes uses a functional approach to identify individuals with disabilities who qualify for protection and benefits under a particular law or policy without regard to whether the exact type of disability they may have is well defined or understood.

The socially constructed approach recognizes the role of society in defining disability. A basic principle is that a disability is defined as an individual's inability to perform in some socially valued way. Thus, if a society values intellectual work, then an individual who cannot learn to read may be considered to have some kind of a cognitive disability. However, in an agrarian society, if most of the population is not able to read, then cognitive disabilities may not be considered important. In fact, many less severe disabilities considered high incidence today, such as learning disabilities, were not recognized as disabilities prior to the Industrial Revolution and its attendant urbanization. A second basic principle of the socially constructed approach addresses the important role of societal attitudes in shaping the nature of the [Page 244]disability experience. In different societies, attitudes toward disabilities and the persons who have them may be negative, neutral, and/or positive. For example, in some African cultures, an individual who is hallucinating may be considered to be divinely inspired and capable of special healing. In contrast, in mainstream U.S. culture, such a person may be considered to be in need of medication and perhaps hospitalization to treat serious mental illness. More generally, people with disabilities may report that in the eyes of others, their disability overshadows their abilities. Consequently, the attitudes of others toward people with disabilities may constitute a greater difficulty than any impairments resulting from their disability per se.

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