All disabled people have the right to understand the frameworks that shape how systems treat them. This page centers disabled people's expertise on the models that influence policy, healthcare, education, employment, and everyday attitudes.
"Disability models" are frameworks people use—often without realizing—to explain what disability is and what should be done about it. They shape law, medicine, education, employment, charity fundraising, and media representation.
Understanding these models helps you notice when a system is treating you in a particular way, recognize the assumptions behind policies and practices, advocate for yourself more effectively, and push back against harmful framings.
You don't have to pick one model forever. The key is noticing which one is operating in a situation and asking: Who benefits from this framing? Who is harmed or erased?
Focus: The individual body or mind
The problem according to this model: Impairment itself
The solution according to this model: Cure, fix, treat, normalize
The medical model treats disability as a defect located within the individual. Doctors and other professionals are positioned as the "experts." Disabled people are framed as patients or cases to be managed. Success is measured by how close someone comes to a non-disabled norm.
This model can provide pain relief, access to assistive technology, and diagnoses that unlock services and self-understanding. Medical care matters, and many disabled people need and want treatment for specific aspects of their conditions.
When the medical model dominates without other frameworks, access needs get treated as optional "accommodations" rather than rights. There's pressure to "overcome" disability rather than change inaccessible environments. People whose conditions can't be cured or managed to non-disabled standards are sidelined, blamed, or treated as failures. The social and environmental causes of disability go unexamined.
Focus: Pity and inspiration
The problem according to this model: Disabled people's lives are assumed to be sad, limited, or less valuable
The solution according to this model: Charitable giving, "helping," or using disabled people as symbols
This model frames disability as tragedy and disabled people as objects of pity or inspiration. You'll see it in fundraisers that use dehumanizing photos, "for just $1 a day" narratives, stories of disabled people as "burdens" on families or taxpayers, and "inspiration porn"—content that uses disabled people doing ordinary things to motivate non-disabled audiences.
Charity-model organizations do sometimes fund services that disabled people need. Visibility, even when patronizing, can occasionally lead to policy attention.
This model silences disabled people's own priorities in favor of what donors find compelling. It justifies low expectations and segregation. It reinforces stereotypes that disabled people are helpless, dependent, or valuable only as symbols. Disabled people's expertise and leadership are erased in favor of non-disabled "helpers."
Focus: Sin, purity, karma, or destiny
The problem according to this model: Disability is seen as punishment, test, blessing, or spiritual lesson
The solution according to this model: Prayer, repentance, healing ceremonies, or "accepting God's plan"
In some frameworks, disability is punishment for sin (the disabled person's own or their family's). In others, it's a test of faith, an opportunity for others to demonstrate charity, or evidence of special spiritual status. These beliefs exist across many religions and cultures.
For some disabled people, spiritual frameworks bring comfort, meaning, and community support. Religious communities can provide practical mutual aid and social connection.
This model can blame disabled people or their families for existing. It may romanticize suffering as "heroic" or "purifying." It can discourage practical supports, access changes, or medical care in favor of waiting for divine intervention. Disabled people may be treated as less than fully human or as symbols rather than complex individuals.
This wiki respects diverse spiritual beliefs while rejecting frameworks that treat disabled people as less worthy, as punishment made visible, or as existing primarily for non-disabled people's spiritual benefit.
Focus: Barriers, not bodies
The problem according to this model: Inaccessible environments, institutions, and attitudes
The solution according to this model: Remove barriers; redesign systems
The social model, developed by disabled activists in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, distinguishes between impairment (the bodymind difference) and disability (the barriers created by society).
The problem isn't that someone uses a wheelchair—the problem is buildings without ramps. The problem isn't that someone is Deaf—the problem is no interpreters or captions. The problem isn't that someone processes information differently—the problem is rigid systems that accommodate only one way of thinking.
This model has been powerful for legal and policy change. It shifts responsibility from individuals to systems. It provides a framework for universal design. It connects individual disabled people to collective political action. It makes clear that disability is not a personal tragedy to be overcome but a social condition to be changed.
The social model can underplay pain, fatigue, and internal experiences that exist regardless of social barriers. Some disabled people feel it dismisses real bodily suffering in favor of structural analysis. It can feel abstract for people who are isolated from community or who lack access to advocacy resources.
Focus: Integration of biological, psychological, and social factors
The problem according to this model: Complex interactions between body, mind, and environment
The solution according to this model: Comprehensive assessment addressing all three domains
Originally meant to recognize that health is shaped by biological conditions, psychological factors, and social circumstances—all interacting with each other. In theory, this allows for nuanced understanding that neither reduces disability to biology alone nor ignores bodily experience.
In many healthcare and benefits systems, the biopsychosocial model has been used to over-emphasize "mindset" or "behavior change," downplay structural issues like poverty, racism, or inaccessible housing, question whether people are "really" disabled or ill (especially people with chronic illness, chronic pain, or psychiatric disabilities), and justify denying benefits or accommodations.
When used well, this model can recognize complexity. When used poorly—which is common—it becomes a tool for gatekeeping and victim-blaming.
Focus: Disability as a human rights issue
The problem according to this model: Denial of equal rights, dignity, and participation
The solution according to this model: Legal protections, policy change, full inclusion in society
The human rights model, most clearly articulated in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), treats disabled people as rights-holders rather than objects of charity or medical management. Disability is understood as part of human diversity. The goal is full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
This model provides a framework for international advocacy and legal protections. It centers disabled people's dignity and autonomy. It has driven significant policy change in many countries. It connects disability rights to broader human rights movements.
Rights frameworks depend on enforcement mechanisms that often don't exist or don't work. Legal victories don't automatically translate to material change in disabled people's lives. The human rights model can focus on formal legal equality while ignoring economic inequality, racism, and other structural factors that shape disabled people's experiences.
Focus: Intersectionality, collective liberation, and transformation
The problem according to this model: Interlocking systems of oppression including ableism, racism, capitalism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy
The solution according to this model: Collective access, mutual aid, and systemic transformation led by those most impacted
Disability justice, developed by Black, brown, queer, and trans disabled organizers—including Sins Invalid, Patty Berne, Mia Mingus, Leroy Moore, Eli Clare, and many others—goes beyond legal rights to address the intersecting systems that produce and target disability.
Core principles include:
Intersectionality: There is no separate "disability issue" apart from race, class, gender, sexuality, immigration status, and colonial histories. These systems work together.
Leadership of the most impacted: Those who face the most barriers—people who are institutionalized, incarcerated, undocumented, poor, multiply marginalized—should lead.
Collective access and collective care: We keep each other alive. Access is a shared responsibility, not just individual accommodation.
Anti-capitalism: Productivity is not a measure of human worth. Economic systems that treat disabled people as disposable must be transformed.
Sustainability: Our movements must be accessible to people with limited energy, time, and capacity. Disability justice rejects burnout culture.
Disability justice names what other models miss: that ableism is inseparable from racism, poverty, incarceration, and colonial violence. It centers disabled people who are most marginalized, not just those with the most access to advocacy resources. It offers a vision of collective liberation rather than individual accommodation.
Disability justice is a framework and a set of principles, not a program with easy implementation steps. It requires ongoing work to translate into specific policy demands or organizational practices. It can be co-opted or reduced to aesthetic rather than structural change.
Focus: Self-determination and community-based support
The problem according to this model: Institutionalization, professional control, and denial of choice
The solution according to this model: Consumer-directed services, peer support, and barrier removal
The Independent Living movement, which emerged from disabled people's organizing in the 1960s and 1970s (particularly at UC Berkeley and through the 504 Sit-In), holds that disabled people are the experts on their own needs. "Independent living" doesn't mean doing everything without help—it means having control over your own life, including directing the supports you need.
Key elements include:
This philosophy has driven major policy changes including the ADA, shaped service delivery models that give disabled people control, and created networks of CILs that provide practical support and peer connection. It positions disabled people as experts rather than patients.
"Independence" as a frame can reinforce individualistic values that don't serve all disabled people equally. CILs and consumer-directed services are unevenly available and funded. The movement's leadership has historically been dominated by people with physical disabilities, sometimes marginalizing people with intellectual, psychiatric, or developmental disabilities.
Focus: Neurological variation as natural human diversity
The problem according to this model: Pathologizing and attempting to eliminate neurological differences
The solution according to this model: Acceptance, accommodation, and valuing different ways of thinking
The neurodiversity paradigm, developed primarily within autistic communities, holds that neurological differences like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and others are natural variations in human cognition—not defects to be cured. Just as biodiversity strengthens ecosystems, neurodiversity strengthens human communities.
This doesn't mean disabled people don't need support or that all aspects of neurological difference are neutral. It means the goal is accommodation and acceptance rather than normalization or elimination.
The neurodiversity paradigm has been transformative for many autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people, providing a framework for self-acceptance and community building. It challenges pathologizing research agendas and harmful "treatments." It positions neurodivergent people as having valuable perspectives rather than deficits.
The neurodiversity paradigm is sometimes misused to minimize support needs or to suggest that anyone who wants treatment is failing to accept themselves. It has been criticized for centering people who can "pass" or who have lower support needs. Some people with neurological disabilities prefer medical frameworks and find the neurodiversity paradigm doesn't describe their experience.
You'll encounter different models in different contexts:
You don't have to adopt one model entirely or reject others completely. What matters is recognizing which framework is operating and asking critical questions: Who benefits from this framing? Who is harmed or erased? What would change if we used a different model?
Have lived experience or expertise that could strengthen this page? We especially welcome perspectives on models not well represented here, including those from the Global South and Indigenous communities.
This page centers disabled people's expertise and is informed by disabled-led organizing globally. For questions or to suggest additions, see How to Contribute.
Last updated: November 2025