Human Rights Model Of Disability Research Paper

There is no universally accepted definition of disability, and there are different conceptual models that generate competing policy conclusions. This paper summarises the main models and identifies the theoretical advantages of the ‘Human Rights Model’, which appears to be the most appropriate in a developing country context. In practice, however, it is not without its problems, and these will be examined by considering the implication of applying a human rights-based approach to inclusive education in Uganda.
The Utility of Models of Disability:

The importance of getting the model right: policy implications
A disability model provides a conceptual framework that supports our perception and understanding of disability, impairment and society (Wasserman, Asch, Blustein, and Putnam and Gordon, Finkelstein, Pinder). Three models of disability are examined below: the medical model, the social model, and the Human Rights Model of Disability (HRMD). The influence of the ‘capability approach’ on the HRMD will also be examined. Understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of these disability models and the capability approach is important because each model has implications in policy design, implementation and practice that affect disabled people (Trani and Bakhshi, Wasserman, Asch, Blustein, and Putnam). For example, the various conceptual frameworks underlying the identification of what disability entails, and how it is measured, has implications for the estimation of prevalence of disability, whether and to what extent it needs addressing through policy, and the validity of various forms of disability research. It is argued that the HRMD, which is a synthesis of other models presented, provides the most complete, coheren...

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...del as ‘a sacred cow’. Other critics, (Reindal, Palmer and Hartley, Bury) discuss the reality of disability as being a complex consequence of interactions between health conditions and both the physical and social environment. Bury suggests that the model has not yet fully engaged with everyday issues facing disabled people, nor has it produced a practical approach to meet these needs. Additionally, the model can ignore impairment, argued by Palmer and Hartley as being central to the experience of disability. Shakespeare, in his paper on Debating Disability, expounds that ‘disability is always an interaction between individual factors—predominantly impairment, aspirations and motivations - and contextual factors—environments, policies, barriers and so forth.’ Applying an understanding of social context should not mean that the personal experience is irrelevant.