ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four disability models and approaches: the medical model, the social model, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and the human rights approach. The medical model is acknowledged as the first analytical approach to provide a comprehensive definition and understanding of disability. There are different versions of the social model. The socio-medical approach that lies at the heart of the ICF helps us understand the complexity of disability. One of the advantages of this multi-layered framework is that it provides us with disability-related terminologies and a classification to assist policy-makers in developing intervention strategies. Another disability model is the human rights approach, which is gaining momentum among stakeholders since the adoption of rights conventions, especially the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The human rights model of disability encompasses sets of human rights, civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights.
