ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203033777/a4362100-fc75-48a7-8227-2d5d1d4a15ef/content/fig149_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Our perceptions of disability are often closely tied up with notions of mobility and access as typified by this sign now universally used to draw attention to public facilities for the disabled. The motif, depicting as it does a person in a wheelchair, serves as a generalisation for all the problems associated with physical disability, and while the use of symbolism in this way may be helpful in defining a group of people within the mainstream population, it also serves to mask the wide variety of individual difference which exists within that group. It is because the labels which we commonly use to describe different groups often shape our expectations of the potential of individual group members, that we need a broader knowledge of particular disabling conditions.
