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LiveTextAccess.
Training for real-time intralingual subtitlers.
This is Unit 1. Understanding accessibility.
Element 1. Basic concepts.
This video lecture explains different models of disability.
My name is Rocío Bernabé
from the Internationale Hochschule SDI München in Germany.
I have prepared this video lecture in collaboration with
the European Federation of Hard of Hearing,
in short, EFHOH.
On completion of the training sequence, you will be able to explain
the concept of disability and to distinguish between several models.
Let's take a look at the agenda.
First, we will talk in the introduction about how different perspectives
have led to different approaches to disability in the past.
Then we will talk about four main models of disability.
And we will discuss the main ideas behind them.
Lastly, we will end this video lecture with a summary.
Let’s get started with the Introduction.
"We are not disabled, we are being disabled"
is the slogan of a German campaign started by
the Social Association North Rhine-Westphalia e.V.
The statement shows how the way we look at a concept,
in this case disability,
influences the way we understand it.
In this case, the perspective is a social one.
In other words, the perspective matters.
We can define disability by putting the focus on individual factors,
such as a person's health condition or his or her impairment.
Conversely, we can define disability by putting the focus on the context,
in which this person lives in.
In this case, disability would be influenced
by factors that are external to that person.
In between these two opposite sides of this continuum,
there are also approaches that consider
both individual factors and contextual factors.
Indeed, the way disability has been understood,
has changed and moved along this continuum
during the past decades.
We can say that there are three main approaches to disability:
individual, social and mixed approaches.
Individual approaches put the focus on the person.
This is on individuals and their impairments.
The mystical-religious and the medical models are both
individual approaches.
Conversely, social approaches put the focus on disability
as a product of the environment.
This approach has led to the social model of disability.
Lastly, there are mixed approaches that consider both the impairment
and contextual factors.
This is the case
in the biopsychosocial model of disability.
Let's see some characteristics of each model.
The mystical-religious model goes back to the classical antiquity.
This model follows an individual approach.
The mystical-religous model revolves around the values
that were at the centre of arts and of the culture at that time.
These were: body perfection, harmony and proportion,
clear lines, movement in the stillness.
These prevailing values and the lack of literacy lend people
to search for explanations that were of a more divine
or more magical nature.
For instance, parents believed that they had been punished for their sins
when their kids had an impairment.
Others thought that the gods were sending them misfortunes,
or other thought that the impairment was the result of magic.
Persons with an impairment had no place in such a society.
This explains behaviours that we know from that time,
for instance, from Sparta where kids were abandoned,
hidden, or even killed.
Around the 14th century, the understanding of disability changed as society did.
During the Renaissance another individual model emerged:
the medical model.
The medical model approaches disability as a condition that can be treated,
that can be cured.
The model considers that it is a person's fault to have an impairment.
Persons with an impairment were considered to be less able
than persons without an impairment.
The society also believed that medicine could fix them.
Then the social model emerged.
This model considers that barriers emerge in a society
or in environments that have been designed
without having taken into consideration varied needs.
The social model grows out of the disability advocacy movement
from the 70s and 80s.
The idea is that the society creates barriers
that impose a disability or a state of disability
on persons with impairments.
In other words, society does not address the needs of persons with impairments,
nor their rights are being preserved
when environments are not accessible.
The focus of the social model is, therefore, on environments.
This view is crucial because it meant a radical change
away from the individual approaches.
With the social model, the focus is on environment
and on the ability to create universally designed environments
that are accessible for all persons,
no matter what their abilities or capabilities are.
Lastly, the biopsychosocial model.
This model was introduced in 2002 by the World Health Organisation.
The model can be described as a combined or mixed model because it considers
both the health condition, or the impairment, and the context.
The model describes that engaging in an activity is influenced
by two types of factors.
That is a medical condition or an impairment
and by contextual factors.
Contextual factors are not only environmental, such stairs.
Contextual factors are also intangible ones
and include the ideas and values in a society
as well as those ideas, values or beliefs of a person.
The extent to which a person can participate in society
on an equal basis results from the interaction of all of them.
For instance, the ability of a person with a hearing impairment
to attend to a conference on an equal basis,
and participate on an equal basis,
will depend on environmental factors,
such as whether the conference is barrier-free
and offers, for instance, real-time subtitles,
but also on personal factors.
These personal factor can be time,
financial means to pay the fee for the conference and,
of course, whether he or she are interested in the topic,
maybe for working reasons.
Before we finish this video lecture, let us take a look at the definition
of disability provided in the Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities from 2006.
Allow me to read it aloud.
“Disability is an evolving concept that results from the interaction
between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers
that hinders their full and effective participation in society
on an equal basis with others.”
As you can see, the definition is in line
with the social and the biopsychosocial models.
To date, 165 states and the European Union
have ratified the Convention, and therefore this definition,
or this approach, to disability.
We could actually conclude saying that this approach to disability
is widely shared in the world.
Le's recap briefly.
We have seen that disability is widely understood as a state
that results from the interaction between a person with an impairment
and the environment.
We have also seen that this view is shared in many countries.
However, this does not necessarily mean
or imply that all persons share this view,
nor that they have internalised these values.
What I mean by this is that
being aware or agree into a definition matters.
But it also matters the way we behave in our daily life.
This is why I would like to end this video lecture
with two questions.
They are: Which is your perspective towards disability?
And, how does it show in your daily life?
As for now, thank you very much for your attention.
Exercises.
The exercises for this video lecture are
in the Trainer’s Guide and the PowerPoint file.
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LTA - LiveTextAccess.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
SDI - Internationale Hochschule.
Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici.
2DFDigital.
The European Federation of Hard of Hearing People - EFHOH.
VELOTYPE.
SUB-TI ACCESS.
European Certification and Qualification Association - ECQA.
Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
Erasmus+ Project:
2018-1-DE01-KA203-004218.
The information and views set on this presentation
are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion
of the European Union.
Neither the European Union institutions and bodies
nor any person acting on their behalf
may be held responsible for the use
which may be made of the information contained here.