Disability as 'Pathology'

Today the question before us is, whether or not to include disability as a subtheme of disease. The issue arose from attempts to treat disability as a pathology. The example from UN discussion forum clearly seems to go for including disability within NCDs or non-communicable diseases:


So the debate shifts -- whether disabilities that result from diseases (esp. NCDs) are to be treated as disease or not. However there was confusion about this point. And this confusion arose because of the undeniable fact that whether it's disability as a result of a NCD or not, it's still a disability. This confusion was allayed upon further discussion in the class -- now that we know the figures (90% in developed countries and 50% in developing countries of disability is from some disease whether NCD or non-NCD) then the question is whether it's OK to say that disability mostly is a disease or to say that due to the following reasons, it's not:

(i) since disability is a social construct like gender
(ii) since disability is a continuum(iii) since disability is seen as an alternative 'being'
(iv) since what we are trying to do in this class is to learn that disability is also a concept.

Point no. (iii) above is brought out very nicely in the following email in the context of the above UN statement:

So the debate continues and it has to be constructed by all who participate.

We also saw how the 2nd type of definitions, ie, research definitions are quite different in their coverage and in their area of application from Type 1 definitions. The research definitions point toward an alternative concept of disability that is in tune with viewing it as construct and as a way of being.

We started then with the origin of the concept of equality for persons with disability in the Indian context. I showed how it arose first through concerns of education for the disabled persons. In fact, it was early as 1968 (or 1964-66, if we count the Kothari Commission reports) the National Policy of Education in India covered disabled persons. In the context of the awareness world over about DPs that time, the 'handicapped' which was being put to use. And in light of the later definitions that emerged as part of the ICIDH by the WHO 'handicapped' in this context can be seen as disabled.

So it was visionary document and it was early enough. However, we noted -- and there was a lively debate on this in class -- whether special schools or integration is the answer. There is obviously much more to say in this context and we will discuss this in detail later, including my recent work on this.