DB

Disability Oppression

Defining Disability

• Americans with Disabilities Act: • A physical or mental

impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major activities of such individual • A record of such impairment • Being regarded as having such

impairment

Leading causes of Disability

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Historical Overview • Plato • Those with disabilities should be put away

� Judeo-Christian tradition � Disability was a consequence for

individual or parents behavior • Elizabethan poor laws • Those with disability are the deserving poor

• Social Darwinism and Eugenics • Innately unproductive, endemically unfit and

without worth • World War II • Unfit, defective, retarded • First into the gas chamber regardless of age

Historical Overview

• After WWII • Returning veterans with disability forces

the moral consequence of society to act • Federal legislation addressed some of the

issues for the first time • Primarily for rehabilitation

• End of 20th century • Disability movement gains momentum • Culminating in the Americans with Disabilities

Act (ADA)

Physically Disability

•Common experiences in varying degrees • Prejudice • Oppression • Stigmatization • Marginalization • Isolation • Discrimination

Disability Experience

• Most contend with: • Oppression resulting from

intersectional minority status • Life adaptation issues • Limitations and natural

consequences of disability • Financial and sexual

exploitation

Disability and Identity Development

• Internal and external reality is shaped by oppressive forces that influence: • Thinking • Feeling • Behavior • Environmental adaptation

• What is the greater limitation? • Physical disability itself or society’s

expectations for disability

Disability and Stigma • Society emphasizes: • Physical perfection • Beauty • Activity • Physical performance

• Responses to stigma • Deep anxiety and insecurity • Anger and sadness • Humiliation, shame and

embarrassment • Low self-esteem

The Nature of Disability

• Situational variables dynamically interact to produce unique adaptation and coping experiences • Age of onset • Person’s inherent character • Family and larger environment

system • Socioeconomic status • Ethnic group • Cultural interaction • Societal interaction

Disability types • Functional Disability • Dominant view of disability • Refers to the nature and extent of the disability • Functional ramifications for the individual

• Socially Imposed Disability • Perceptions of individuals abilities or

disabilities • Gendered perceptions • Based on his/her interaction with the environment • Determines adaptation to environment

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Early Age of Onset • Parent’s and Society’s responses affect child’s development • Parental grief may occur • Oppression, marginality and isolation become family experiences • Early intervention is key to child’s development

• Crisis Theory: Patterns of responses to the loss of a child’s functioning • As a challenge • As a loss • As a threat

• Empowerment occurs when Family and Society respond to disability as a challenge

• When perceived as loss or threat it will have an impairing impact on other aspects of development as child ages

Later Age of Onset

• Different experience since there is no history of previous functioning • Impacts individual and family functioning and social

role performance • Loss of identity

• Mourning identity loss

• Crisis Theory applies to late onset too • Personality plays key role in coping • Ongoing pain as part of disability complicates

experience

Disability and Adaptation

Adaptation Risk

factors Demographic

factors

Illness and treatment response

Psychological symptoms

Personal coping style Social

Support Networks

Illness appraisal and attributions

Concurrent stresses

Disability and Resilience

• Adaptation Protection Factors • Intelligence and problem solving

ability • Ability to form strong and

enduring attachments • Ability to compensate for real or

perceived inferiority • Ability to reframe in positive

ways • Personal energy (persistence) and

temperament