4 Look at the words in bold in the text ‘What is a ‘disability’?’ and try to explain them. Make up sentences with these words.

5 Fill in the correct word(s) from the list below. Use the word(s) only once.

limitations contemporary the mainstream disability

begging the individual environments created

society account personality handicap

1. different ways of thinking about ……

2. caused by a …… social organization

3. historical association with …… and charity

4. excludes them from …… of social activities

5. that incorporates the socially …… aspects

6. the attitudes of …… and the …… of the person

7. takes the focus away from ……

8. looks at disabling ……

9. but …… is something that is imposed on that disability

10. socially created ………

11. which takes no or little …… of people

6 Answer the following questions using the information from the text above:

• What are the definitions of disability given by Oliver and Barnes and Ann Shearer? What do they focus on?

• Explain the meaning of the following terms used in the text:

- medical model of disability

- social model of disability

- impairment and disability

- disabling environments

7 Discuss the following questions in pairs or groups:

• Can you identify any common areas of need for disabled people in your country?

• To what extent are disabled people’s needs being met?

8 Imagine that you are a person who has some kind of disability. Tell about your life using the scheme that is given below.

p roblems actions to get

1 . lack of communication rid of problems

2. ……… feelings 1. to commit a

1. frustration dreams suicide

2. .…………. 1. to be ‘normal’ 2. ………

2. … ….

9 Read the statement provided below and give your own comments. Back up your opinion.

“The people with a disability are human beings in the same way as everyone else and only different to the extent that they suffer from a particular condition.”

M. Oliver

10 Read the text that reveals one of the problems of disabled people and be ready to fulfil the tasks given after this text. Acceptance

Needs vary but may include financial support, special educational facilities, sheltered employment, support, help in making social contacts, and aids and help in the practicalities of daily life. Often the greatest problem is not the impairment itself, but other people’s attitudes which may then be internalised by the sufferer.

In the following extract, a woman with multiple sclerosis explains how she felt about categories of normality after the onset of the disease:

I was confused; I still felt fundamentally the same. My body was different, I know that all right, but inside it was me. Normality is after all what you know. The male who is very short is normal to himself, it’s other people who make him aware of an ‘abnormality’. The ugly female is ‘normal’ to herself, it’s the others who make her ‘abnormal’. ’Normality’ and ‘abnormality’ are socially defined. Disability can and sometimes does interfere with the practical running of a life, but it is the reaction of and non-action of society which causes disablement. There is no such thing as THE DISABLED, there are just people.

On leaving hospital and finding the mantle of ‘disabled’ places firmly upon my unwilling shoulders I entered a world which was alien, absurd and ultimately defeating. My weak grasp on my identity was no real match for the massed forces of society who firmly believed themselves as ‘normal’ and myself just as firmly as ‘abnormal’. I found myself inhabiting a stereotype. I became my illness.

(By Y. Pat, Mastering Social Welfare.)