12 minutes
The medical view and the social view See how the oldest lens and its main challenger answer different questions, and why the sentence you write about a problem decides who has to change.
What you’ll be able to do Distinguish a medical-model statement from a social-model statement and restate a deficit-only problem so the barrier is the subject of the sentence. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most useful thing to change before the note is saved? Document a next step for The medical view and the social view: Find one note, email or ticket you wrote this month that describes a disabled person as unable to do something. Rewrite it so the barrier is the subject. Two lenses, two questions The medical view is the one most of us were raised with. It asks what condition, diagnosis or treatment is involved, and it locates disability inside the person. It is the right lens for a clinician planning care, and it produces useful information when a person chooses to share it. The harm begins when it is the only lens an organization has. Then every gap between a person and a process becomes evidence of that person’s limitation, and the process itself is never examined.
The social view was developed by disabled people, not by professionals. Its central observation is simple: an impairment is a difference in body or mind, but disability is produced when that difference meets a building, a rule, a document or an attitude that was designed without it in mind. The steps at the entrance disable the wheelchair user; the missing captions disable the Deaf viewer. This lens directs attention to what the organization actually controls.
Neither lens is complete. A person with a chronic pain condition may need both a flexible schedule, which the social view finds, and time for treatment, which the medical view respects. The skill is knowing which question you are asking and refusing to let the medical view decide matters, such as form design, that it was never built to decide.
Compare the two views Medical view Social view Both together
Central question: What diagnosis, condition or treatment is involved?
Useful for: clinical care, health-related needs, and understanding what a person tells you about their own body.
Risk when used alone: the person becomes the problem to fix, the environment is treated as neutral, and staff start asking for diagnoses they do not need.
Central question: What in the environment, policy or attitude restricts this person’s participation?
Useful for: pointing at design, rules and communication, which the organization controls and can change for everyone.
Risk when used alone: it can understate individual support and health needs, and it can leave a person waiting for a redesign when they need something today.
Ask what the person needs to take part and what in the design creates that need. Provide the immediate support. Fix the design so the next person does not have to ask.
Watch the subject of the sentence What you can change You control who is the subject when you write up a problem: the person, or the form, room, platform or rule.
What to watch for Do not let “applicant unable to comply” stand as a complete problem statement. It records a failure that belongs to the process as if it belonged to the person.
Your next step For one week, read every problem sentence you write and ask: if this were fixed, who would have changed?
Which view wrote this sentence? The applicant’s condition prevents her from using our phone line.
Choose a category Medical view Social view Our phone line has no relay or text option, so callers who cannot use voice cannot reach us.
Choose a category Medical view Social view He has ADHD, so long meetings are hard for him.
Choose a category Medical view Social view Our meetings run ninety minutes without a break or an agenda.
Choose a category Medical view Social view The licensing visit could not proceed because the provider is hard of hearing.
Choose a category Medical view Social view The licensing visit was held in a lobby with no quiet space, and no captioning was arranged.
Choose a category Medical view Social view Check matches Reset Words to keep straight Impairment
A difference in body or mind. It belongs to the person and is not the organization’s to fix or to ask about.
Disability, in the social view
The restriction produced when an impairment meets a design, rule or attitude that did not plan for it. It is created by the environment and can be reduced there.
Deficit-only framing
A description in which the person’s limitation is the whole explanation and the process is assumed to be neutral. Its tell is that only the person is asked to change.
The subject test
Read the problem sentence. Whoever is the grammatical subject is the one your organization will expect to change. Make the barrier the subject.
Why both lenses
The medical view respects real health needs; the social view finds what you control. A person with a flare-up needs a flexible schedule today and a redesigned schedule policy for next month.
Carry this forward The medical view asks what condition is involved and is useful for care; used alone it makes the person the thing to fix.
The social view asks what in the environment restricts participation; it was built by disabled people who noticed that the steps, not their legs, kept them out of the building.
The subject of your sentence decides who carries the work. “Client cannot complete the form” and “the form cannot be completed without a mouse” describe the same afternoon and lead to different fixes.
A completed sort of medical-view and social-view statements and a knowledge check.
Find one note, email or ticket you wrote this month that describes a disabled person as unable to do something. Rewrite it so the barrier is the subject.
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Reset this lesson
Course overview Next lesson Carry this into practice Learn six ways of seeing disability, notice which one your team reaches for first, and use a barrier-removal view on a real decision.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
