ABSTRACT
The definition of disability is controversial. The World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Classification of Impairment, Disability and Handicap provides a useful guide to different aspects of the definitional problem. Disability is defined as the loss of a faculty which results in an inability to do things or do them as well as a person of the same age and sex whose physical and mental condition is normal. Disablement is the overall effect of the relevant disabilities, that is, the overall inability to perform the normal activities of life, the loss of health, strength and power to enjoy a normal existence. In order to capture some sense of the evolving storyline some of these variables were coded for the first, middle and final thirds of the programme. Disabled characters were compared with a sample of selected ‘normal’ able-bodied characters from the same television programmes to investigate any differences in presentation.
