The 74

A generation ago, people with disabilities were rarely in the room when their welfare was under discussion. Decisions about their care and education were made almost entirely by non-disabled people, who typically addressed them not as individuals who aspired to an education, desirable work or independent living, but as people whose bodies and intellects were broken. This framework is now known as the medical model of disability — a phrase that conjures images of people institutionalized in childhood, their humanity and potential literally locked away from public view. In the half-century since the passage of laws ensuring them the right to education, housing, jobs and other public benefits, people with disabilities have made great headway on closing the door to that draconian past and replacing it with what’s called a social model of disability.