Published on 12, July, 2020
Is the Social Model of Disability appropriate for people on the autistic spectrum?
Disability legislation a provision hinges on what's called the SOCIAL MODEL. It was apparently created by disabled people themselves (or were they simply prompted down this route in a series of consultations?). Instead of looking at disability as an individual disadvantage or limitation, we now look at how society creates barriers and by making what are termed "reasonable adjustments" an environment is created where disabled people have an equal chance of leading their lives as able people.
The new language approaches disability as difference of ability and refers to disabilities as "significant impairments". We aren't allowed to use language which otherwise appears to discriminate, such as cripple or lunatic. We are now expected to say that someone is significantly impaired in an aspect of their lives.
What the social model endeavours to do is to remove the barriers to disabled people engaging in society. So people in wheelchairs can access buildings and transport by means of ramps, and emergency procedures in event of fire, for example, must take disabled people into account.
In education and other contexts where information is transferred, we are expected to use 14 point fonts, sans serif texts, and matt paper to ameliorate the high reflectivity of white paper. (Even though some people prefer serifs, or need blue paper)
What is less often realised is that this generalises disability. It takes away the individuality of experience, on the principle that it is no longer about individuals with limiations but a society that endeavours to break down the barriers by means of "reasonable adjustments" - or otherwise using the very ambiguous metaphor "a level playing field".
What this is doing is absolving society from having to address the needs of the individual. The Autistic Spectrum is very individual in its manifestations, and the range of impairments would be very difficult to encompass b means of general reduction in barriers.
So under the Social Model the government is trying to reduce payments to disabled people - which conveys the message that an individual needs help. "Leading Rewarding and Fufilling Lives" is actually about barrier reduction. But is that appropriate to autistic spectrum conditions?
In education I've frequently come up against the idea that once a disabled person has been assessed and given an allocation of reasonable adjustments (more time in exams, handouts on matt paper with sans serif text etc), that's all that now has to be done. I've therefore been told I canniot make any more adjustments for a person on the spectrum, irrespective of the specific needs for that individual, because he or she has been allocated their quota of reasonable adjustments, and any further measures would unfairly advantage that student over able students!
Is autism being ill-served by the social model of disability? I think it is. I think NAS needs to look at the Autism Act to determine whether the provisions are about individuual needs or generalised reduction in barriers.
Diffability or disability when it stops being dictated by the average majority view is a crock of nonsense and is realy a management of ignorance and indifference as well as an intransegence to the realities of life and population there has never been a majority of well fit acceptable etc etc yadda yadda people were are all so unique and the homogenised funnel that has brought about this kind of thinking is not much different that the mind set that gave birth the the Airian dream. That did not work out well for all concerned in the long run. much like guilt is a bit of a waste of energy as it achieves little and directs poorly and it goals are better achieved in a more constructive experience for all. but its a massive salient social habit that is deemed sub human if it is not present in the overt behaviour of an individual.
Edward De Bono askes why we ar so stupid as a human rece ans purports that we have yet to learn to think a skill not so lacking in th ASD community, If we free ourselves from the shackles of being less than we are just another version of human and living within a system that is narror and intransegent in its inclusions.
Social Model be damned it has a mass of misery as its resume and it is about time it changed and was people centered and not an inherited diatribe of historical rules that serve few, disenfranchise many and dicard an act that makes its validity questionable from the start.
Smell the coffee people, seeimg is understanding, understanding is seeing, for the matrix buffs take the red pill and quit sucking on the blue one PLEase.
WB
Mitkuye oiasin, we are all related