Disability Models: Examining Strengths, Weaknesses, and Applications

This essay provides a detailed overview of various disability models, including the medical model, charity model, International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), social model, twin track approach, and biomedical model. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of each model, critiquing their implications for individuals with disabilities and society. The medical model is analyzed for its focus on medical interventions and potential limitations in considering individual values. The charity model is explored for its altruistic aspects and potential for lowering self-esteem. The social model is discussed for its emphasis on societal barriers and its limitations in addressing individual differences. The twin track approach is presented as a means of inclusion, and the biomedical model is examined for its continued relevance in understanding disability. The essay concludes by highlighting the differences and relationships between these models and their impact on defining and explaining disability.

Running head:DISABILTY MODELS
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Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

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Databases used
The different data base that has been used for the conduction of the literature search are
Google Scholar and PubMed. MESH terms like “disability” AND “Models, “Social AND
medical AND disability”. The inclusion criteria used for the search are English and full test
papers between the years 2013- 2019.
Models of disability
The models of the disability are tools for developing the platform upon which society or
the government can devise the strategies to meet the needs of the people. The models of the
disability can provide an insight to the perceptions, stigmatization and the prejudices of the
disabilities. It is the models that reveals the way in which the culture delivers or restricts the
access to goods, works, and political authority to the people suffering from the disabilities. The
models are normally impacted up by two vital philosophies. The initial philosophy perceives
disabled people to be dependent upon the society that which can result in developing
paternalistic concept ,discrimination and the segregation and the other sees the disabled people as
the customers what the society has to offer that leads to empowerment, choice, and equality of
the human rights, choice and integration.
The medical model of disability and the strengths
The medical model of disability focuses on the medical condition of the individuals and
generally locates the disability in the person other than the condition of the society. As per this
model, the condition of disabled people can be changed always by medical treatment or

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intervention (Haegele and Hodge 2016). This model states that disability leads to lowered self-
esteem, underdeveloped life skills, poor education and higher rates of unemployment. People
suffering from disabilities have rejected this model as the have recognized that Medical model
needs breaking of natural relationship with thecommunities, families and societies as a whole.
The strength of the medical model of disability is that, the model aims to improve the
functioning of the patient with the assistance of pharmacotherapy or medical treatment assisting
the disabled person to lead a normal life.
Critiquing the medical model of disability
One of the major critique of the medical model of disability lies in the treatment
procedure of the disabled people (Haegele and Hodge 2016). The Medical personnel normally
acts as the important gate keepers of the and utilizes the diagnosis and the labelling in order to
determine which individuals needs the services or what type of services or benefits are required.
The medical personnel might not consider the values of these people and rather categorize them
on the basis of the bodily functions. Thus they feel that they have limited options.
The second criticism associated with the medical model is the negative perception about
the disabled people ate bestowed within this model. This obviously affects the way a
professional interacts with an individual with disability. For example a sportsman with the
disabilities find that their wishes and aspirations are mocked by the ones who are not
disabled .Again, people without disability might think that sports or any kind of intense physical
are not for the disabled people.

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The medical model allows the professionals to follow a process of identification of the
limitations by using themedical model and then taking necessary actions to improve the physical
and the social needs of the person with disability. Haegele and Hodge (2016) have stated that in
spite of everything there always exists an inequality that limits the collaboration of the
professional and he client. Although a health care professional be caring but the imposed
solutions can sometimes be less benevolent. The question still arises, whether a shared decision
making takes place or not while providing care to the clients. If the decisions are taken by over
active service providers them the clients are left with no choice than to obey their instructions. In
extreme cases, it dignity of the clients are often undermined and by removing eventhe slightest
chance to participate in the decision making process. Hence, it can be said that in spite of the
different disability acts meant for the people with disabilities, their position in the society has not
changed much.
The charity model of disability
The charity or the tragedy model of disability perceives the disabled people as people that
are victimized by the circumstances and should be treated with pity. One of the strength of the
charity model is that it can also be considered as a discourse of altruism and benevolence. It can
be understood, that the early Christian communities perceived these helpless people as the
instruments for the virtuous work of mercy. In spite of its limitations many people suffering from
disability had been benefitted by this.

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Critique of the charity model of disability
‘Tragedy and pity” stems “care”. Although caring for the disabled people can be highly
praised but it can case certain risks. There are numerous charities supporting and caring for
people with a particular disability, thereby classifying the disability on a medical model basis,
institutionalizing many disabled people. Kanter (2014) have stated that being recipients of the
charity lowers the self-esteem of people with disability. In the name of charity, many sets of
terms are often set upon the beneficiaries that is first patronizing the victims and second setting
limits on their choices. The employers at the workplace also perceive the people with disability
as charitable cases and hence instead of making the workplace conducive for the people with
disability, they often try to compensate them with money.
International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF)
It is a framework that gives a classification of the health and the health related conditions
for the adults and the children. It consists of two parts – the functioning and Disability and the
contextual factors (WHO. 2019). The function and the disability includes the body functions and
the structures and the activity and the participation states the functional status of an individual
including mobility , communication, self-care, interpersonal interactions , learning and
application of the knowledge (WHO. 2019).
Social model of disability and its strength
The social model of disability states that disability is caused by the way the society has
been organized instead of the impairment of a person. The social model of disability mainly
focusses on removing barriers that restricts the life of the disabled people, with the aim that when

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these barriers will be removed these disabled people will be able to live an independent life with
equal rights in the society like other people (Barnes 2013). The social model of disability shifts
the emphasis from personal adequacy to the physical and the societal barrier experienced by the
persons with disability (Barnes 2013). One of the strength of the social model is that, rather than
focusing on the weaknesses of the disabled people, the viewpoint shifts the focus on the rights of
the disabled people and the requirement to make a society sustainable for the disabled people.
Limitations of the social model
On the contrary, According to Haberman and Pitacco (2018) the critics of the social
model began from the major disability charities and many professional organizations who felt
that giving dominance to the disabled people can threaten the life of the non- disable people. It
has been labelled as an outdated ideology that is in need of further development. Although the
social model has been used for the political activism, it has also created confusion and tensions
in the disability studies (Owens 2015).
The failure of the social model is that it failed to address different attributes of the
disabled people (Bingham et al. 2013). Social model tends to separate impairment from the
disability. As stated by Palmer and Harley (2012) the model cannot account fully for the lived
experience of the people with disability as long as long as impairment and disability are
perceived differently. Another critique of the social model is that it does not consider any
differences between people with disabilities (Owens 2015). The social model ignores that
there exist differences between the various forms of oppressed states. The social model of
disability does not necessarily understands the experience of a person with disability
independent of the other attributes like gender, sexual orientation or race ( Haegele and Hodge

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2016). Again as per the social model, the society would undergo certain changes to
accommodate these people. But changing the social norms have never been found to be
effective in treating disability in people although those reforms improve their quality of life a
little bit.
The Twin track approach
Twin track approach can be considered as an effective means of inclusion of the
people with disability (Wissenbach 2014). The twin track approach has two components-
Mainstreaming the disability, that focuses on the society for the elimination of the excluding
barriers and the implementation of particularinitiatives for empowering and strengthening
the capability of the people with disabilities. Wissenbach (2014) have stated that
Mainstreaming disability is the process of assessing the implication for men and the women
with disabilities of any planned action, including policies, programs and the legislations in
every aspect and all the levels.
Some of the specific actions towards disability are- the promotion of self-reliance,
promotion of inclusion and not segregation, Updating the disability policies, developing an
interdisciplinary approach for caring for the disabilities , involving in the community
participation, ensuring a shared decision making , considering the specificities of the child
and the women suffering from disability (Yousafzaiet al. 2015).One of the limitation of the
Twin track approach is that it might not be always possible to include people with disabled in
the mainstream services. For example making a community development program inclusive
of all kinds of people can be expensive and not feasible in certain cases. Certain jobs might
not be suitable for people with disability.

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Is biomedical model of disability still in use?
The biomedical model of health focuses entirely on the psychological, environmental
and is considered to be the modern way, how the health care professionals treat and diagnose
a disability. The biomedical model of disability is shaping up the understanding of the public
because of the factors like- the long history of the biomedical model, the reliance of the
theory on the prestigious and the authorities academic disciplines of medical science, the
strong explanatory power of the theory. The well-defined definition of the biomedical model
relieves the society of any needs for providing accommodation. It mainly focuses on
changing the rehabilitation rather than changing the environment. In the biomedical model
the disability is perceived as an abnormality. As stated by Deacon, (2013), the biomedical
model of illness is relevant for many diseases based illness, but might not be applicable for
many situations. For example, intellectual disability or mental illness can be brought about
by factors like stress and anxiety. Most of the biomedical models are linked to the primitive
forms of the min-body dualism and even today the budgetary system, the health
commissioners and the, the professionals act as if there is a clear inescapable separation
between the physical and the mental health problems.Deacon(2013) have stated that mental
disorders are brain diseases hence require pharmacological treatment for targeting a
presumed biological abnormalities. Hence its biomedical approach to science is correct on
this respect. Hence, biomedical model of disability is still in use.
The social model of disability is entirely different from that of the biomedical models of
disability. It ignores the deficiencies of the patients and focusses more on the strengths. The
biomedical model does not differ from the charity model much as the charity model can be

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considered as the offshoot of the medical model. The charity and the medical models of
disability are mainly used by the non –disabled people to define and explain disability.
The medical model of disability differs from the human rights model by the fact that
unlike the medical model the human rights affirms that all human beings irrespective of their
functional status. Whereasthe medical model marks the people with disabilities within the “sick”
role and discusses the disabilities in a deficit model orientation (Haegele and Hodge 2016).
Usefulness of the biomedical model:
For the treatment with disabilities, the biomedical model provides a strong framework for
treatment according to Schachtschneider et al. (2016). The model ensures that the treatment
utilizes the advancements in research and technology to ensure best quality of treatment, for
example using x ray technology, anesthetic technology and immune technology. The framework
also enables effective treatment of several commonplace problems and thus supports the health
and wellbeing of the people. The model also helps to improve the life expectancy of the patients
by focusing the treatment towards the biological factors attributed or associated with the
conditions and therefore helps to improve the wellbeing of the patients (van Steenbeek et al.
2016). Additionally, this framework also helps to foster a better quality of life among the patients
by addressing the biological needs of the patients through the usage of medications to manage or
treat their conditions. These factors clearly shows that by addressing the biological factors
underlying a condition, the health and wellbeing of the patients can be improved significantly
and therefore suggests that such a framework is still very much useful in healthcare (van
Steenbeek et al. 2016). However, it has also been suggested by Rath and Zietek (2018), a
combination of framework can also be used to improve the health and wellbeing of people and

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provide a holistic care for the patients. The charity and social model can be used to empower
individuals living with disabilities and provide them non-clinical support that is necessary for
their wellbeing and recovery and therefore are important considerations for a home based or
community based care delivery system. However, the biomedical model successfully integrates
biological and medical perspectives to provide an effective clinical intervention for the treatment
of disabilities by addressing the problems from the perspective of its causes and biological
effects and medications that such conditions would require. Also, the biomedical framework
helps to implement a person centered care, keeping the best interests and expectations of the care
users at the center of the clinical decisions (Haegele and Hodge 2016; Rath and Zietek, 2018).
Therefore I believe that the biomedical model provides the most effective framework for treating
disabilities and therefore is still a useful model of care for people with disabilities.
Conclusion
Hence, it is evident that failure of the two main models of disability has led to the
development t of the new models of disability like the human rights model, the ICF and the twin
track approach of disability. These new models focus on the preservation of the human rights.
The inclusive development would go beyond the sole disability issue. Hence it is important that
disabled persons are treated with respect and dignity.

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