“Disability models” are frameworks people use—often without realizing—to explain what disability is and what should be done about it.
They shape:
- Policy and law
- Healthcare and rehab
- Education and work
- Charities and fundraising
- Media and everyday attitudes
Understanding these models can help you notice when a system is treating you in a particular way—and push back.
Focus: The individual body or mind
Problem: Impairment itself
Solution: Cure, fix, treat, normalize
Common features:
- Doctors and professionals are the “experts”
- Disabled people are framed as patients or cases
- Success is measured by how close someone comes to a non-disabled norm
This model can provide pain relief, assistive tech, and diagnosis, but when it dominates:
- Access needs are treated as optional “accommodations”
- There’s pressure to “overcome” rather than change the environment
- People who can’t be cured are sidelined or blamed
Focus: Pity and inspiration
Problem: Disabled people’s lives are assumed to be sad or less valuable
Solution: Charitable giving, “helping,” or using disabled people as symbols
You’ll see this in:
- Fundraisers that use dehumanizing photos or “for just $1 a day” narratives
- Stories of disabled people as “burdens” on families or taxpayers
- “Inspiration porn” – disabled people used to motivate non-disabled audiences
This model can bring money into services but often:
- Silences disabled people’s own priorities
- Justifies low expectations and segregation
- Reinforces ableist stereotypes
Focus: Sin, purity, karma, or destiny
Problem: Disability is seen as punishment, test, or spiritual lesson
Solution: Prayer, repentance, healing ceremonies, or “accepting God’s plan”
In some communities, spiritual frameworks bring comfort and community.
But they can also:
- Blame disabled people or their families for existing
- Romanticize suffering as “heroic”
- Discourage practical supports and access changes
This wiki respects diverse spiritual beliefs while rejecting the idea that disabled people are less worthy or chosen purely as symbols.
Focus: Barriers, not bodies
Problem: Inaccessible environments, institutions, and attitudes
Solution: Remove barriers; redesign systems
Examples:
- The problem isn’t that someone uses a wheelchair—the problem is stairs without ramps.
- The problem isn’t that someone is Deaf—the problem is no interpreters or captions.
Strengths:
- Powerful for law and policy change
- Shifts blame from individuals to systems
- Encourages universal design
Limitations:
- Can underplay pain, fatigue, and internal experiences
- Can feel abstract if someone is isolated from community or support
¶ Biopsychosocial model (and its misuse)
Originally meant to integrate biological, psychological, and social factors.
In practice, it is sometimes 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
When used well, it can recognize that health is complex.
When used poorly, it becomes a tool for gatekeeping benefits or blaming individuals.
Emerging from Black, brown, queer, and trans disabled organizers, disability justice emphasizes:
- Intersectionality – No separate “disability issue” apart from race, class, gender, and colonial histories.
- Collective access and collective care – We keep each other alive; access is a shared responsibility.
- Anti-capitalism – Productivity is not a measure of human worth.
- Leadership of those most impacted – Especially people who are institutionalized, undocumented, criminalized, or poor.
This wiki leans heavily toward disability justice as a guiding model.
You might see:
- A doctor using the medical model
- A charity ad using the charity model
- A disability rights law grounded in the social model
- Organizers working from disability justice
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?