Three models of disability

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Three models of disability

• And their relevance to disability and inclusion
  within educational settings

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Introducing the Medical model of disability

• Also known as the individualised model and the
  deficit model (Dyson, 1990)

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Introducing the Medical model of disability

• Disabled people are disadvantaged when we do not
  recognise their special, abnormal requirements
  (emphasis in the original, Abberley, 1993 111).

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The deployment of LSAs An example of the Medical
model in practice

• The Warnock Report the help of an ancillary
  worker is often crucial to the effective
  placement of an individual child with a
  disability or disorder in an ordinary class
  (DES, 1988)

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Stereotypes associated with disability

• They cant

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A critique of the medical model of disability
Overlooking social oppression
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A critique of the medical model of disability
Overlooking ourselves

• Dont you understand that
• The comments you make about my child
• Tell about yourself
• And not about him?
• And the needs we discuss
• Are yours
• And not his.
• When you look at my child.
• (Peter Clough, 1988)

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Introducing the needs model

• Ainscow (1998) it is an interactive
  perspective.
• Interaction between learners and schools (Bradley
  et al., 1994).
• 'Special needs are ... needs that arise between
  the child and the educational system as a whole
  when the system fails to adapt itself to the
  characteristics of the child' (Dyson, 1990 59).
• By "inclusive learning" we mean the greatest
  degree of match or fit between the individual
  learners requirements and the provision that is
  made for them.
• (FEFC, 1996 25-26)

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The deployment of LSAs An example of the needs
model in practice

• LSAs differentiate and adapt teaching materials
  and perform an intermediary role between students
  and their teachers.

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A critique of the needs modela reduction of
education to technology

• Needs model overlooks the difference between
• (a) the use of strategies, of particular
  pedagogies as a means to enable educators to
  become inclusive,
• And
• (b) the elevation of particular teaching
  techniques and strategies to ends-in-themselves.
  (Method fetishism (Bartolome, 1992).)

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A critique of the needs modela reduction of
education to technology

• Teaching and learning Dysons (2000 90)
  'technology of inclusion'.
• We 'embrace a technicist ideology that reduces
  education to a technology and teachers to
  operatives in a system designed by others'
  (Booth, 2003).

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A critique of the needs model of disability
Overlooking social oppression

• This model also acts to distract attention from
  more significant questions such as why, in a
  particular society or, indeed, school, do some
  pupils fail to learn successfully? (Ainscow,
  1998 10).

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Introducing the social model

• Advocates of the Social Model make a key
  distinction between
• An impairment, i.e. a functional limitation
  within an individual caused by physical, mental
  or sensory impairment.
• AND
• A disability, i.e. the loss or limitation of
  opportunities to take part in the normal life of
  the community on an equal level with others due
  to physical and/or social barriers.
• (DPI, 1982)

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• Disability is the disadvantage or restriction
  of activity caused by contemporary organisation
  which takes no or little account of people who
  have physical impairments and thus excludes them
  from the mainstream of social activities.
• (UPIAS, 1976)

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Kants practical moral imperative demands that
we

• Act in such a way that you always treat humanity,
  whether in your own person or in the person of
  any other, never simply as a means, but always at
  the same time as an end.
• (Kant, 1798/1972 91)
• Applied to disability Teach all students abled
  or disabled in such a way that you always treat
  learners never simply as the receivers of
  specialist teaching and/or resources, but always
  at the same time as contributors to knowledge.

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The deployment of LSAs An example of the Social
Model in practice

• LSA is a contributor to the public space of an
  institution.
• LSAs are increasingly seen as integral to
  successful inclusion. Theirs is no longer a
  peripheral, supporting role but a key teaching
  and learning collaboration.
• (Corbett, 2001 88)

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Considering social and environmental factors
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Overview of the models
Needs Focus on the interaction between impairment and environment
Social Focus on both impairment and environment
Medical Focus on the person with the impairment
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Overview of the models as they inform the
practice of LSAs
Needs LSAs adjust resources, make amendments so that that the special or additional needs of the child are met.
Social LSAs works to change learning environments for EVERYONES benefit.
Medical LSA ensures the learner with an impairment can fit into mainstream educational space
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References

• Abberley, P. (1993) The concept of oppression and
  the development of social theory of disability,
  Disability, Handicap and Society, Vol. 2, No. 1,
  pp. 5-19
• Ainscow, M. (1998) Would it Work in Theory?
  Arguments for practitioner researcher and
  theorising in the special needs field, In C.
  Clark, A. Dyson A. Millward (Eds.) Theorising
  Special Education (London Routledge)
• Bartolome, L. I. (1994) Beyond the Methods
  Fetish Towards a Humanizing Pedagogy, Harvard
  Educational Review, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 73-194
• Booth, T. (2003) Letting what is inside out and
  what is outside in confessions and dilemmas of
  an educationalist, Paper presented at European
  Society for Research on the Education of Adults
  Conference, Life History and Biographical
  Research Network Conference, 6 - 8th March 2003

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• Bradley, J., Dee, L. Wilenius, F. (1994)
  Students with Disabilities and/or Learning
  Difficulties in Further Education A review of
  research carried out by the National Foundation
  for Educational Research (Slough NFER)
• Corbett, J. (2001) Teaching approaches which
  support inclusive education a connective
  pedagogy, British Journal of Special Education,
  Vol. 28, No 2, pp. 55-59.
• DES (1978) Special Educational Needs, Report of
  the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of
  Children and Young People (The Warnock Report)
  (London HMSO)
• DPI (1982) Proceedings of the First World
  Congress (Singapore Disabled Peoples
  International)

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• Dyson, A. (1990) Special educational needs and
  the concept of change, Oxford Review of
  Education, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 55-66
• Farrell, P., Balshaw, M. Filiz, P. (1999) The
  Management, Role and Training of Learning Support
  Assistants (DfEE, London)
• FEFC (1996) Inclusive Learning (the Tomlinson
  Report) (Coventry FEFC/HMSO)
• Kant, I (1972/1798) The Moral Law Kants
  Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals,
  translated by H. J. PATON (London Hutchinson
  University Library)

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• Margerison, A. (1997) Class teachers and the role
  of classroom assistants in the delivery of
  special educational needs, Support for Learning,
  Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 166-169
• UPIAS (1976) Fundamental Principles of Disability
  (London Union of the Physically Impaired Against
  Segregation )