Disability is a condition that affects many people. Its existence is due to several causes, whether related to genetics or the history of a person‘s life, throughout history we have found many models that seek to explain it, in this article we will talk about the model of functional diversity.
Before we talk about what the concept of functional diversity means and its usefulness, it is necessary to understand the history of the concept, in this way we will have an idea of how the concept of disability society has evolved. You will find different models: from the demonological perspective to the modern perspective of functional diversity.
- The concept of disability has evolved with humans throughout history.
- The cultural.
- Medical.
- Technological and social factors of each era have influenced the definition and expectations that society generates around it.
In the Middle Ages disability was a punishment of the gods, it is a demonological model in which everything that showed a change of normality was possessed by evil or by a demon, in this society people with disabilities have been set apart or isolated at best. , or even killed to keep them away from the rest of the population and prevent the spread of evil.
In the case of the organic model, although its origins go back to Hippocrates and Galeao, its heyday took place in the twentieth century, it is a model based on physical and organic pathology, if a person has a disability it is understood that this is due to a failure of the body. This model saw these people as something to care for and protect, they have lost their autonomy and independence, with hospitalization being the only way to receive care.
In the post-war period, due to the various consequences of this situation, society faced an increase in the disability rate, which faced the challenge of reintegrating these people into society, that is where the socio-environmental model was born. Their gaze sees these people as social individuals destined to return to a normal life, the treatment of this time involved the creation of technical aids so that these people could interact with their environment in the best possible conditions.
Today, we maintain a rehabilitation model of disability, consider the individual active, autonomous and independent, involved in a rehabilitation process and motivated by social participation as a full citizen, giving great importance to the role of professionals around the person with a disability, but focuses little on the environmental factors that cause this situation of disability.
Therefore, in response, the perspective of the integration model is born, which no longer focuses on how we can change a person to adapt to normality, sees disability as a functional diversity, and a possible lack of adaptation would be simply the logical thing to do. result of a rejection by the context in which it must develop. This model seeks to break with the favoritism of normality, emphasizing difference and not deprivation.
The concept of functional diversity breaks with the idea that people with disabilities suffer from a disorder that invalidates them, and society classifies them as people with disabilities.
The danger would no longer be only in the categorization and its connotations, but in the fact that it is precisely society itself that imposes these conditions in which the disabled person cannot adapt, it is a constructivist idea, easy to understand through the following statement: if everyone were blind, being blind would not be a problem: society would adapt the context to blindness.
Is it society that excludes individuals with functional diversity and takes them out of “normality”?By not creating products, resources, or tools that are available to you. This exclusion has a certain pragmatism, because it is easier to consider the majority. to think about the universality of the population, but in doing so, we are providing people with disabilities who would not have to suffer them.
It was here that the idea of the universal model, a term created by the architect Ronald L, was born. Mace. Il to understand that creating a product should not be done with a normal “majority” in mind?And then adapt it to others. In the development of our world, we must consider all existing individuals.
The universal model consists of seven basic principles
Today we are far from making the population as a whole understand what functional diversity means, but moving towards this utopia of the universal model can help us eliminate the incapacity of the world, which would facilitate a considerable improvement in people’s quality of life. many people currently excluded from independent living.