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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Disability: social aspects
Historically, interventions designed to impact the lives of
disabled people were predicated upon deficits-based models of
disability. This began to change with the introduction of World
Health Organization (WHO) frameworks, particularly the
International Classification of Function (ICF), that emphasized
that disability could only be understood in the context of
interactions among health, environmental factors, and personal
factors and by examining the impact of such factors on a person's
activities and participation. The ICF identified personal factors
as among the elements of a social-ecological model of disability
but did not provide an extensive taxonomy of what constitutes such
factors. Understanding Disability examines personal factors that
come from the field of positive psychology and, as such, to begin
to identify and build strengths-based approaches to promoting the
full participation, dignity, and well-being of disabled people.
Using an autoethnographic approach, as well as multiple
first-person accounts from disabled writers, artists, and scholars,
Jan Doolittle Wilson describes how becoming disabled is to forge a
new consciousness and a radically new way of viewing the world. In
Becoming Disabled, Wilson examines disability in ways that
challenge dominant discourses and systems that shape and reproduce
disability stigma and discrimination. It is to create alternative
meanings that understand disability as a valuable human variation,
that embrace human interdependency, and that recognize the
necessity of social supports for individual flourishing and
happiness. From her own disability view of the world, Wilson
critiques the disabling impact of language, media, medical
practices, educational systems, neoliberalism, mothering ideals,
and other systemic barriers. And she offers a powerful vision of a
society in which all forms of human diversity are included and
celebrated and one in which we are better able to care for
ourselves and each other.
Uses of disability in literature are often problematic and harmful
to disabled people. This is also true, of course, in children's and
young adult literature, but interestingly, when disability is
paired and confused with adolescence in narratives, interesting,
complex arcs often arise. In From Wallflowers to Bulletproof
Families: The Power of Disability in Young Adult Narratives, author
Abbye E. Meyer examines different ways authors use and portray
disability in literature. She demonstrates how narratives about and
for young adults differ from the norm. With a distinctive young
adult voice based in disability, these narratives allow for
readings that conflate and complicate both adolescence and
disability. Throughout, Meyer examines common representations of
disability and more importantly, the ways that young adult
narratives expose these tropes and explicitly challenge harmful
messages they might otherwise reinforce. She illustrates how
two-dimensional characters allow literary metaphors to work, while
forcing texts to ignore reality and reinforce the assumption that
disability is a problem to be fixed. She sifts the freak
characters, often marked as disabled, and she reclaims the derided
genre of problem novels arguing they empower disabled characters
and introduce the goals of disability-rights movements. The
analysis offered expands to include narratives in other media:
nonfiction essays and memoirs, songs, television series, films, and
digital narratives. These contemporary works, affected by digital
media, combine elements of literary criticism, narrative
expression, disability theory, and political activism to create and
represent the solidarity of family-like communities.
From two-time National Book Award nominee Melissa Fay Greene comes
a profound and surprising account of dogs on the front lines of
rescuing both children and adults from the trenches of grief,
emotional, physical, and cognitive disability, and post-traumatic
stress disorder. The Underdogs tells the story of Karen Shirk,
felled at age twenty-four by a neuromuscular disease and facing
life as a ventilator-dependent, immobile patient, who was turned
down by every service dog agency in the country because she was
"too disabled." Her nurse encouraged her to tone down the suicidal
thoughts, find a puppy, and raise her own service dog. Karen did
this, and Ben, a German shepherd, dragged her back into life. "How
many people are stranded like I was," she wondered, "who would lead
productive lives if only they had a dog?" A thousand
state-of-the-art dogs later, Karen Shirk's service dog academy, 4
Paws for Ability, is restoring broken children and their families
to life. Long shunned by scientists as a manmade, synthetic
species, and oft- referred to as "Man's Best Friend" almost
patronizingly, dogs are finally paid respectful attention by a new
generation of neuroscientists and animal behaviorists. Melissa Fay
Greene weaves the latest scientific discoveries about our
co-evolution with dogs with Karen's story and a few exquisitely
rendered stories of suffering children and their heartbroken
families. Written with characteristic insight, humanity, humor, and
irrepressible joy, what could have been merely touching is a
penetrating, compassionate exploration of larger questions: about
our attachment to dogs, what constitutes a productive life, and
what can be accomplished with unconditional love.
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