Disability Essay: Experiences, Challenges, and Social Models

This essay delves into the multifaceted aspects of disability, exploring personal experiences with individuals facing autism and intellectual disabilities. It examines the challenges encountered in communication, understanding, and emotional control when interacting with disabled individuals, highlighting the impact of societal attitudes and stereotypes. The essay further investigates the difficulties disabled people navigate daily, including emotional, economic, and social barriers, while also contrasting the medical model of disability with the social model, which emphasizes societal barriers. It advocates for greater awareness, equal opportunities in education and employment, and a shift towards inclusivity, emphasizing the importance of positive language and moral support to foster a more accepting and supportive community. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for government support and the elimination of negative perceptions surrounding disability to ensure a better quality of life for all.

Running Head: DISABILITY
Disability
Essay
Student Name
[Pick the date]

DISABILITY 1
Autism and intellectual disability
Intellectual disability is actually a condition in which individual is not able to adopt
surrounding behaviour and also faces issues related to reasoning and problem solving
capabilities. This restricts their interaction with other people in the form of hesitation. While
Autism is basically a neurobehavioral condition in which individual feel difficulty in social
interaction along with language and communication issues. This issue is very common in
Children and often makes them face difficult in understanding what others think and feel. In this
issue people are not even able to communicate through their facial expressions (Webmd, 2019).
Experience with disable people
I believe that people with disability are uncomfortable in interacting with other people.
Often people start displaying their sorry feeling towards disable people which makes them feel
different from others in the society (Disability, 2019).My first experience was interaction with
my neighbor who was 18 years old and was suffering from Autism. While interacting with my
neighbor I was very conscious while choosing my words. There was a fear in my mind that any
of my words can hurt his sentiments and therefore I used to limit my conversation with him.
While interacting with other disable individuals I found that it is not true because these people
have interacted with me in a very comfortable manner just like other persons. While in case of
intellectual disability, I observed hesitation related to interaction. In few cases, I experienced that
disability has taught them the real face of the world around them, which otherwise was difficult
for them to understand. Sometimes I believe that they are not actually living their life because
they have not expected this kind of things from their life.
Another issue which I experienced was that disable people seem little bit broken down
inside because of mistreatment by the world (MacAonghusa, 2018).One of my friend who is
disable shared that he is afraid that people will make fun of his disability by say such words to
him which can hurt emotionally (Boyce & Wood, 2011). But at the same time, I experienced that
there are some people who thinks positively and have earned their respect because of their
disability. Being disable does not mean that we should feel demotivated towards life, instead of
that we can use it as motivation for our personal aim (Abilities, 2019). I experienced another
positive side of the disable person who shared that people at present especially youngsters see us
beyond our disability by treating us important part of the society.
Personal challenges
I came across various challenges while interaction with disable people in the form of
communication, understanding, negative attitude and emotional challenge. First challenge I faced
while interacting with disable person in my community was his negative attitude towards
outsider due to their bad experiences (Uiaccess, 2019). Another challenge for me was developing
proper conversation because I was not able to communicate with him so easily as compared to

DISABILITY 2
others. He were facing difficult in understand what I was asking and also he was not able to
communicate his exact feeling in the form of words and facial expressions. Another challenge
which I faced while interacting with him was losing my emotional control. It was not easy for me
to control my emotions while listening to his past experiences. At present, people have become
very generous towards this section of the community. They are offering their help to disable
people without saying a single word. In addition to this, one disable lady shared that she is not
getting equal opportunity to gain education as compared to other section because of her
disability. She is being deprived of gain education which can provide her some source of income
for her living hood.
First time I came to know the real pain of these disables people related to the social
culture which really shocked me. I believe that they are being recognized as bad omen or
messenger of devil in our present culture. Therefore disable people are not treated as part of the
community (Müller, Schuler & Yates, 2008). In addition, one person shared that his parents got
separated because of his birth. Even though Australian government has launched many benefit
schemes relate to this section of the community. But I experienced that these kinds of benefits
are not able to reach to every disable individual of the community. In Australia, government uses
centralized pattern for food distribution because of which they are not able to cover each section
of this community. Many of them are still deprived from this benefit scheme of Australia
government.
While interacting with one disabled student, I also experienced that people like him has
to face some stereotype from the other student. In some case they are physically harassed by
other students. In addition to this, I believe that these people are continuously hampered and are
often seen as people with low IQ without judging (Singal, 2010). I also experienced that people
continuously poked and pinch them with words like they cannot do, even if they are capable off.
Sometimes I feel that average community is trying to hide their weakness behind their negative
attitude towards this section.
Challenges faced by disable people in leading good quality life
While further interacting with them I came to know about various challenges which these
section of people have to go through on a daily. These challenges include emotional, economical,
mental, health and cultural aspects. In economic challenge, these people feel discrimination
related to the schemes from government, institutes and even from family because they are often
are seen as a burden on the community. It becomes very difficult for them to arrange their
medical needs (Powdthavee, 2009). It is also very challenging for them to move freely without
the help of others from one place to another.

DISABILITY 3
Social model disability
According to social model disability, people are disable not because of their physical
condition .They are disable because of present barriers in the society such as building with no
toilet facility and the attitude of the people towards these people (Scope, 2019). While medical
model considers disability as the medical problem of the individual which is being created
because of disease and it can be cured with medical support. As per safety net of social model, it
will be better to generate a safety protection around disable people by sharing issues faced by
disable section on open platform. This will make society realized that these sections are being
deprived of many facilities especially the most important facility which is support from the
community (Oliver, 2013). It is the duty of every individual who is the part of this community to
make people aware that these people are not different from us. They have same feel as we have.
Sympathy can lower down their moral value; therefore it will better to become their moral
supporter by motivating them that they can do anything. Words which display negative
impression on their minds such as “you cannot do it” must be eliminated from the conversation.
Instead of that, all type of positive words which can make them feel part of this community must
be used (Ison et al., 2010). It must be the prime duty of the Australian government to offer equal
opportunity to disable people in the field of education, job and benefit schemes.

DISABILITY 4
References
Abilities. (2019) Disability as inspiration [online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.abilities.com/community/inspirational.html
Boyce, C. J., & Wood, A. M. (2011). Personality prior to disability determines adaptation:
Agreeable individuals recover lost life satisfaction faster and more
completely. Psychological science, 22(11), 1397-1402.
Disability. (2019). Attitude and disable people [online]. Retrieved from: https://disability-
studies.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/library/finkelstein-attitudes.pdf
Ison, N., McIntyre, S., Rothery, S., Smithers-Sheedy, H., Goldsmith, S., Parsonage, S., & Foy, L.
(2010). ‘Just like you’: A disability awareness programme for children that enhanced
knowledge, attitudes and acceptance: Pilot study findings. Developmental
Neurorehabilitation, 13(5), 360-368.
MacAonghusa (2018) Society thinks disabled people are not humans with rights but problems to
be solved’ [online]. Retrieved from: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-
family/society-thinks-disabled-people-are-not-humans-with-rights-but-problems-to-be-
solved-1.3485979
Müller, E., Schuler, A., & Yates, G. B. (2008). Social challenges and supports from the
perspective of individuals with Asperger syndrome and other autism spectrum
disabilities. Autism, 12(2), 173-190.
Oliver, M. (2013). The social model of disability: Thirty years on. Disability & society, 28(7),
1024-1026.
Scope .(2019) Social model of disability [online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability
Singal, N. (2010). Doing disability research in a Southern context: challenges and
possibilities. Disability & Society, 25(4), 415-426.
Uiaccess .(2019). Interacting people with disabilities [online]. Retrieved from:
http://uiaccess.com/accessucd/interact.html
Webmd. (2019). What is Autism? [online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/understanding-autism-basics#1