Knowra Disability Disability Disability arises when long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments interact with barriers that restrict participation. It can be understood through medical, social, and rights-based frameworks.
Disability rights movement : A movement advocating equal rights, access, and self-determination for disabled people. Activists reframed disability from an individual problem into a matter of rights and social barriers.
Social model of disability : A framework locating disability in social barriers rather than in impairment alone. It explains how inaccessible environments can disable people with the same impairment differently.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities : A United Nations treaty that sets out rights and obligations concerning persons with disabilities. It establishes an international rights framework centered on participation and equality.
International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health : A World Health Organization framework describing health, functioning, activity, participation, and environmental factors. It combines bodily, personal, and environmental dimensions in classifying disability.
Disability culture : Shared practices, art, history, and identities developed by disabled people. It shows how disability can be a source of community and cultural expression, not only exclusion.
Medical model of disability : A framework that treats disability primarily as an individual medical condition requiring treatment or rehabilitation. It contrasts with accounts that locate disabling effects in social organization.
Americans with Disabilities Act : A United States civil rights law prohibiting disability discrimination in specified areas of public life. It provides a national example of legal protections against disability discrimination.
Disability studies : An interdisciplinary field examining disability as a social, cultural, political, and embodied phenomenon. The field brings together critical approaches that challenge purely medical explanations.
Neurodiversity : The idea that neurological differences are natural forms of human variation. It challenges assumptions that every cognitive difference should be treated as a deficit.
Universal design : The design of products and environments usable by people with a wide range of abilities. Designing access from the outset can prevent barriers rather than requiring later fixes.
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