ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how various approaches to disability have sought to define the nature of disability. It examines the origins of the social model and how it has influenced insights into disability both within and beyond the academy. The book seeks to develop an understanding of ‘communication disablement’ from the standpoint of a person with speech impairment and also examines the policy response to the disability ‘problem’. It traces how the emotions of fear, pity and disgust contribute to the social distance between disabled and non-disabled people and how they construct the discrimination and exclusion experienced. The book suggests how learning disabilities have been theorised, or rather not theorised, in disability studies. It describes how mental health and mental illness have been covered in the social sciences, before moving on to explore the potential afforded by a critical realist account.
