What is disability?

[Kendodd]

Watching the Paralympics made me wonder. Oscar Pistorius for example, how could anyone describe him as disabled, and yet the man has no legs, he couldn't be much more disabled!

Ellie Simmonds, she's another one, I don't know if dwarfism even is a disability, but if I'm ever drowning I hope she happens to be walking by to save me.

Anyway they both seem fitter and more able than I ever have been and yet are classified as disabled. I know they are both extraordinary examples and comparing them to the average disabled person is like comparing me to Jessica Ennis.

The OP did just that: "I know they are both extraordinary examples and comparing them to the average disabled person is like comparing me to Jessica Ennis." I agree too - it seems we all agree, which is good.

I do think that disability topics should be more widely discussed, because it leads to understanding and common ground.

My Dad has an above the knee amputation on one leg. He is in pain and yes it is painful to put his entire weight on his stump. His prosthetic is the best he can get but still very basic. It needs constant adjustment in order to have it fit properly but still due to changes in environment, natural changes in him, natural changes to his stump and so on it doesn't always fit well enough for him to feel comfortable walking on different terrain. There was a throwaway comment from a prosthetisist working at the paralympics which almost made me cry with rage. She stated that the legs used at the paralympics were the most basic kind because not all countries could use the most advanced equipment and that all the athletes non-competing legs would of course be computer chipped to account for terrain and so on because that is "normal". God but I wish that was true.

I find the paralympics both amazing and painful to watch. As someone said above, I worry that the coverage hasn't shown enough about the actual daily lives and challenges these athletes go through to get to the glamorous point of running a race. I really would like to have seen more about how they prepare, how they manage their amputations and pain levels and what those in similar situations can do.

That film about Oscar P that was on C5 the other week showed that he has weight-bearing heel skin transplants on the bottom of his stumps. I think they were implying it made things easier for him.

I sort of understand but like you said, it's like comparing you to Jessica ennis: there will always be super humans in the disbaled and NT communities, equally the majority of disabled and NT people are in no way represented at the olympics, or at the paralympics.

heck I doubt i'd even get two of my 3 ASD boys in the staium, I KNOW I wouldn't get the third!

To me disability suits my boys just fine but I have the same condition at a lower level and I would say it doesn;t me; challenged suits me better, iy's a mssive challnge for me to use a phone or alk into a GP surgery but I can do it, just with X panic attacks (AS).

I do think wider definitions of disability / impairment / addtional needs whatever- are positive. DH has had very severe mental health problems in the past, but nobody ever turned to him and said it was a disability, they should have: it almost killed him. A teacher at school told me HFA isn't a disability- but it is, ds3's needs are complex and not necessarily as people would expect but they are there (suspected ASD, definite genetic disorder although nobody knows what or how it is linked or anything at all really).

In reality, for many people who are classed as disabled it is the situation that is disabling: for example if you employ me and let me use email as much as the phone I will fly, it's the rules that make the challenges; if youa ccept that i won;t be walking into teh staff room becuase, quite simple, I can't we will get along fine. For some people however you need th throw out the rule book and in all cases you accept people as they are, and thingsa re OK- DLA if they need it and qualify please. PIP will be a massive game changer though and competely ruin the lives of some people.

SophieLeGiraffe good post.
i think that is the "trouble" the Paralympics doesn't show the reality of the struggle.
I know I am defensive by the way, I think it is cos of the way I see things going. for instance.
I read a post the other day where the poster was sobbing as so she saw that some poorer countries didn't have state of the the ark wheelchairs.
this gave the impression that in this country people have brilliant wheelchairs, but the reality is so different.

Have any you tried holding a door open with a foot then walking through the door oh and you can't let go of the door with your other foot
Tricky your agree

Well think wheelchair users often have to push door open one hand then use their other hand to somehow get their wheelchair through the door

As for talking about para Olympians lets be honest how many of you would compare yourself to a athlete ?

Then let's not forget the equipment issues that NHa provides or not . Wheelchairs well they don't care if you can self propel outdoors or not if you can do in doors on the flat then that's good enough get used to it

Prosthetic limbs NHa provide they are basic nothing like people see on the tv most the time

You want the reality a 6 month wait to get a chair that I could self propel for more than 3 metres a

A chair that was given at first not one that fitted properly a make do With risk of pressure sores as was to short some areas other areas to big

Going home to a house where I could not even shower

If people saw me out and about and others that know me I come across as happy go lucky etc but just because people don't see me cry does not mean I don't cry

Some times I want to sob with the pain despite the string painkillers I am on

Then take ds3 he looks nt but he can't make himself understood if someone asks him what he like to eat in a cafe or at a shop or he gets lost can't tell them my name . He can't write it either as his problem affects ability to write

You are looking at it from a "what they can do" point. Most of the time I look at that with dd2 age 8yo. She was born without a hand from just below her elbow and I'll say that she can do anything except the monkey bars.

However when it comes to filling out a disability living allowance form, it becomes very traumatic for me because I have to focus on what she can't do, or takes longer to do than a child with two hands.

Things like she can't really manage tights unless they are very loose for example, she struggles with doing her hair one side, and if she itches on her right arm she can be in tears trying to scratch it. Then there's things like using a knife and fork. She can, but cutting something toughish (like meat) can take her two to three times as long as it should do. I have to think when I'm buying clothes-she finds buttons easier than zips usually, but I replaced the top buttons on her shirt with velcro.

However she learnt to tie her own tie in two weeks, she can tie shoelaces, she does gym, swimming, she's just taught herself to serve (just about) in tennis by using the raquet to throw the ball up. So you could say she isn't disadvantaged in what she can do.

Most of the time I focus on what she can do, which is best for her, but pretending that she is "normal" is not acknowledging the difficulties she may have to overcome in order to do "normal" things.

"But thinking of people like them it doesn't seem right to describe or think of some people, who seem better able as most of us, able bodied or not, as disabled in any way."

But why should a disabled person never be able to achieve more than an average able-bodied person? Disabled means that you face additional challenges, both due to your illness/impairment and due to the way society is designed to fit the needs of the average able-bodied person. It doesn't make sense to say that if a disabled person achieves a lot despite those challenges they should no longer be described as disabled.

There's an interesting passage at the start of the book "No Pity" by Joseph Shapiro:
Nondisabled Americans do not understand disabled ones.

That was clear at the memorial service for Timothy Cook, when longtime friends got up to pay him heartfelt tribute. "He never seemed disabled to me," said one. "He was the least disabled person I ever met," pronounced another. It was the highest praise these nondisabled friends could think to give a disabled attorney who, at thirty-eight years old, had won landmark disability rights cases, including one to force public transit systems to equip their buses with wheelchair lifts. But more than a few heads in the crowded chapel bowed with an uneasy embarrassment at the supposed compliment. It was as if someone had tried to compliment a black man by saying, "You're the least black person I ever met," as false as telling a Jew, "I never think of you as Jewish," as clumsy as seeking to flatter a woman with "You don't act like a woman."

I'm not saying you think of "disabled" as insult - I think society has hopefully come some way in the last 20 year - but perhaps the uneasiness of describing a high-achiever as disabled comes from the same root: feeling that "disabled" = can't do stuff.

The meaning of "disabled" is a pretty complicated issue really, there's loads to discuss.

Agree MMM.

Why would anyone see the hardest times? When I had a breakdown ( a well deserved one!) last Christmas, should I have gone out in the street to do it? If I can't get through a library door on a bad day, should I send a note to explain?

Should ds3 wear a sign saying I might look like I can go to the loo unaided but I might also go in and lick inside the toilet bowl.

Nah.

Dignity, innit? We want some.

You know the paralympics still discriminates against other disabilities. Those who have physical, mental and other disabilities together are not allowed in the paralympics. So the most challenging and complex cases are shoved in the special olympics, which doesn't happen to be until 2015, can't wait to see the fuss over something DS could maybe partake in should he ever progress to that stage.

do the special Olympics get any air time?

I can't wait to find that out myself............however if we make a fuss now, they may stick it on ITV 4 or something, after all the paralympics were not worthy of BBC1.

they don't get much news coverage, when you compare it to the olympic coverage

I didn't know that devient. Do you know how they do the classification of athletes in the special olympics? It must be really complicated.

Something that has bothered me when listening to people discuss the paralympics and that is the implication that it's amazing that people with disabilities can achieve great things like everyone else. Why is it amazing? Why can't people with disabilities be viewed like I said, differently abled?

MMM here HTH

another good article here

Interesting article. It's awful that they removed learning disabled athletes because non-disabled athletes lied! It's like cancelling the olympics 100m due to drug cheats instead of banning the drug cheats.

I didn't know that about the special olympics, does anyone know why it is done this way?

In defense of the op her post wasn't saying anything bad about people with disability, the simple truth is most of us aren't affected by disability in our everyday lives and are simply not aware that things like prosthetic limbs hurt.
I think it is important that we try to have these conversations without people becoming really defensive, we learn best by sharing experience with others.

Leithlurker Wed 05-Sep-12 09:53:49
"I will keep this short and simple:

Disability is not the physical or learning difficulty, or mental health issue. Those are impairments. Disability is the thing that produces the limiting affect of the impairment. So Oscar has no lower legs or feet, so would have difficulties with steps, ladders, etc. A wheelchair user may have one or lots of impairements but is disabled by the inability to access buildings, things being to high, not enough public transport, etc. In other words it is society that disables not that the disabled are in society."

Does it make any difference if you call it disability or impairment: the truth is that some disabilities produce suffering which has nothing to do with society. Dd's condition causes her chronic pain, regardless of adaptations. There is no way you can change society's perceptions, or her perceptions, so that she doesn't mind being in pain: human beings are designed to mind being in pain.

Yeah, I think that's the problem with the social model cory. There are some disabilities which would still be painful or stop you doing stuff in any imaginable society, even if society was totally designed to meet the needs of people with that disability. But even so, I think it's a very useful concept.

I agree MMMarmite that the social model is a useful model. I have done a lot of reading on it and I'm being placed (as a social work student) in a charity that promotes independent living/working for those living with disability. However, I don't agree with some researchers who suggest the medical model is completely flawed, it has given me food for thought.

paralympians are amazing at their sport but day to day they still have to live with their impairment and their limitations so although the have the ability to swim run and horse ride most disabled people including me are in some degree of discomfort daily, that might be physical pain emotional pain, or even just trying to get through their day to negotiate stairs pavements getting dressed etc etc.

and EVERYTHING cory said