THE SOCIAL MODEL OF
DISABILITY AND DYSARTHRIA
The Disabled Person’s Point Of
View; The Personal And The
Academic
What Has The Social Model
Achieved
• The Social Model of Disability set out below has
been developed by disabled people themselves
based on their own experience.
• While we have seen over the last day and a half
many of the potential benefits of the medical
approach to disability, the experience of disabled
people demonstrates that their limitations are
barriers out in society preventing full and equal
participation,
The Social Model Of Disability
• Impairment: is the functional limitation within
the individual caused by physical mental or
sensory impairment.
• Disability:
is 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 social barriers
• Oliver, M. (1982). Exploring the Divide Illness
and Disability. Proceedings of the First World
Congress, Singapore, Disability Press.
The Nature Of The Barriers
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“We believe that the position of disabled people in society is a
human and civil rights issue and that society must be changed to
allow our full inclusion. We believe that disability arises from
society’s negative treatment of us; it is not an inevitable
consequence of our impairments. So equality is possible and can
be achieved through removing the barriers to our social inclusion”.
The seven needs identified by disabled people to allow full inclusion
are:
Information
Peer Support
Housing
Technical Aids
Personal Assistance
Transport
Access
The Limitations Of The Social
Model
• However there seems to be something
about my personal experience of having
Dysarthric speech that the Social Model
of Disability has not yet taken account of.
• The Social Model of Disability argues that
it is the barriers from social and
environmental organisation along with
attitudes that disable people rather than
their actual medical conditions.
The Limitations Of The Social
Model Continued
• By adapting the account of aphasia given
by Carole Pound and Alan Hewit to
Dysarthria, a social model of Dysarthria
begins to emerge.
• Carol Pound , A. H. (2004) Communication
barriers; building access and identity In
Disabling Barriers - Enabling
Environments (Ed, Swain, J.).
Time Barriers
• Not allowing enough time for the impaired
person to express themselves.
• In a meeting or training session time to be
scheduled to ensure that all participants
are enabled to participate.
Reactions To Communication
Impairment
• Attitudinal barriers
• Assumptions about intellectual ability on
my last holiday at a Vitalise holiday centre,
it was striking how patronising attitudes
appeared to be correlated with extent of
communication impairment.
• If guests had speech impairments or were
non-verbal we appeared to be patronised
and infantilised even more.
Organisational Barriers
• For example staff in a hospital not being able to
understand a patient’s selection from a food
menu because of Dysarthric speech. These
barriers to communication would lead to barriers
to having un-equal access to auxiliary service
such as hospital catering.
• Organisation’s Disability Equality Duties should
ensure that sufficient time can be allocated to
facilitate equality and ease in communication.
Allowing time for fully listening.
• Be prepared, and allowing for a variety of
communication aids and techniques to be used.
Barriers To Identity And Self
Expression
• Barriers to expressing one’s own sense of
self. A person’s sense of self is
constructed through interaction with
others. How others see us, and how we
believe they see us constructs our sense
of self. In psychology and sociology this is
known as symbolic interactionism.
Barriers To Identity And Self
Expression
Continued
• Dysarthric speech can often introduce an
inequality in the interaction process,
through its slow and unclear nature.
• Non Dysarthric speech can gain
dominance in confrontational and non
confrontational interaction, it is easier to
twist or re-interoperate the words of
someone with Dysarthria than someone
without, causing a disadvantage.
Barriers To Identity And Self
Expression
Continued
• Related to the barriers in being able to express
one’s sense of self, leads to the likelihood of
being unable to construct a positive disabled
identity relating to the Social Model of Disability.
• Among the expressions in one’s own sense of
self will be reflections on experiencing
impairment and disability. Therefore a non
disabled person’s view of impairment and
disability can be imposed on the disabled
person’s identity.
Reflections On Personal Experience
• From my personal experience, I believe
that there are disabling barriers which
specifically relate to having Dysarthria.
• These barriers can be found in the area of
social encounters and interaction.
Reflections On Personal Experience
Continued
• The first example and perhaps the most
distressing occurred in my teens and twenties
when I found that due to my Dysarthria I could
not verbally react quickly enough in argument or
discussion to feel that I had adequately
expressed myself.
• This feeling of not being able to adequately
express myself would lead to a feeling of deep
internal frustration and this in turn would lead to
terrible temper tantrums.
• I think that having Dysarthria multiplied the
ordinary frustrations of teenage life.
Reflections On Personal Experience
Continued
• Because Dysarthria can be difficult to hear and
understand, casual interaction in social
situations such as parties and concerts can be
difficult if not impossible.
• There are many situations where the level of
noise is louder than the human voices engaged
in interaction.
• It has been my experience that in such situations
it is hardly worth attempting to enter into
conversation. You have heard the expression;
‘can’t hear yourself speak’, I find this to be
particularly true with Dysarthria.
Reflections On Personal Experience
Continued
• If I cannot hear myself speak because of
the level of background noise, I find it
difficult even to construct and speak a
coherent sentence, let alone make repairs.
Effects On Working Lives
• The second example occurs when people use your
speech impairment to gain some kind of advantage.
• When I was working on my first disability and education
project, I knew that one of the committee officers
deliberately used my speech impairment to distort my
input into the project.
• I was given some Information Communication
Technology teaching. Encouraged by this experience, I
studied for my first degree. When I returned to the
organisation after graduating hoping for some part time
teaching, they had suddenly noticed my speech
impairment.
Effects On Working Lives
Continued
• Another charity that aimed to further the
interests of people with Cerebral Palsy
actively discouraged me from a career in
teaching because of my Dysarthria.
• From an early age, I began to condition
myself to try and ignore what I believe to
be my vocational calling which is to teach.
In later life, I have had occasional
opportunities to teach.