ABSTRACT

A few years ago, my father handed me a large binder labeled “Susan.” I flipped through pages of medical and surgical consultation reports, x-rays, and referrals, full of curiosity. I paused as I gazed upon a report from the then Ontario Crippled Children’s Centre that began with “This unfortunate young girl presented with…” Part of me sighed with

Contents The Prevailing Medicalization of Disability in Rehabilitation .................................................................... 192 Critiques of the International Classification of Function, Disability, and Health ..................................... 195 The Social Model of Disability: Transitioning Disability Perspectives ..................................................... 197 Disability Studies as a Lens ............................................. 198 How Disability Studies Can Inform Rehabilitation ..... 201 Concluding Thoughts: “The Opportunity of Adversity” ..........................................................................203 Acknowledgments ............................................................204 References ..........................................................................205

disbelief, but another part of me accepted it rather quickly. I am a product of rehabilitation. I belong to a group of people who learned as disabled* children about the pressures from family and healthcare providers to change our bodies-to reach for maximum potential and be as normal as possible. Walking, corrective seating and bracing, and managing incontinence all became integral to our existence, equal to or possibly more important than our education. Many of us tended to fall into the language and perceptions that our rehabilitation professionals held about us. Yet I do not believe that I ever viewed myself as an “unfortunate young girl.”