Summary
How we think about disability determines how we treat disabled people: what we research, what we fund, what we build, and what we expect. There is no single “correct” model of disability, but some models serve autistic and neurodivergent people better than others. This page surveys the major frameworks; each has its own dedicated page with fuller discussion.
Understanding these models matters for anyone working in sensory processing and autism, because the model you operate from determines whether you see a person in distress as someone who is broken, someone who is oppressed, or someone navigating a mismatch between their needs and their environment.
The models
The medical model locates disability within the individual: a biological impairment requiring diagnosis, treatment, and where possible, cure. It remains the dominant framework in clinical settings globally. Its practical value is real (diagnosis opens the door to services), but its central weakness is framing the person as the problem, producing a long history of normalisation-focused interventions.
The social model draws a sharp line between impairment (a characteristic of the person) and disability (the disadvantage created by a society that fails to accommodate). Emerging from the UK disability rights movement in the 1970s, it reframes disability as a political issue. For autistic people, it captures much of what goes wrong in environments designed for neurotypical people, but it can underplay the embodied reality of sensory distress and high support needs.
The biopsychosocial model (WHO’s ICF framework, 2001) attempts to integrate biological, psychological, and social/environmental factors. In practice, the “bio” tends to dominate, and the model is often criticised as the medical model with social garnish.
The neurodiversity paradigm frames neurological variation as a natural part of human biodiversity. Coined by Judy Singer (1998), elaborated by Nick Walker and Robert Chapman, it asks “what does this person need to thrive?” rather than “what is wrong with this person?” The paradigm does not deny that autism can be disabling; it challenges the framing of “disorder” as neither scientifically necessary nor socially neutral.
The human rights model, grounded in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), asserts positive obligations on states to ensure inclusion and participation. Lawson and Beckett (2021) argue it complements rather than replaces the social model: one reveals the mechanism of oppression, the other provides the legal tools to contest it.
The affirmative model (Swain & French, 2000) celebrates disability as a positive identity, a source of community and pride. Its neurodivergent counterpart is the growing culture of autistic pride and identity.
The Foucauldian critique asks how we came to think about disability this way in the first place. Foucault’s concept of biopower describes how modern states manage populations through norms, with deviations classified as pathological. This lens helps explain why the medical model persists despite decades of advocacy, and why diagnostic categories carry such weight even when the biology they claim to describe is heterogeneous and contested.
The capabilities approach (Sen, Nussbaum) asks what a person is able to do and to be. Pellicano et al. (2022) applied this to autistic adulthood, offering a framework that identifies where people thrive and where they struggle without reducing autism to a deficit list. The approach aligns well with the concept of a prikkelprofiel: the point is to understand what someone needs to function well.
Where this wiki stands
This wiki draws primarily on the neurodiversity paradigm and the social model, while incorporating insights from the capabilities approach and the human rights model. It takes the position that:
Sensory processing differences are genuine neurological differences, not deficits. Distress arises primarily from mismatch between the person and their environment, not from the person being “broken.” Some autistic people, particularly those with intellectual disability and high support needs, experience difficulties that cannot be fully explained by environmental barriers alone. “Difference not deficit” does not mean “no difficulty.” The goal of understanding sensory processing is to expand what a person can do and be, to support their capabilities, their comfort, and their participation in a life that is meaningful to them. Autistic people are the primary experts on their own experience. Research, practice, and policy should be shaped by their voices.
This is a stance, not a dogma. The wiki acknowledges that reasonable people disagree about these frameworks, and that the landscape is still evolving.
Key sources
- Singer, J. (1998). Odd people in: The birth of community among people on the autism spectrum. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Technology, Sydney.
- Swain, J. & French, S. (2000). Towards an affirmation model of disability. Disability & Society, 15(4), 569–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687590050058189
- Lawson, A. & Beckett, A.E. (2021). The social and human rights models of disability: towards a complementarity thesis. International Journal of Human Rights, 25(2), 348–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2020.1783535
- Pellicano, E., Dinsmore, A. & Charman, T. (2022). What should autism research focus on? Community views and priorities. Autism, 26(1), 14–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361321991273
- World Health Organization. (2001). International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). WHO.
- UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (2006). United Nations Enable. https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html
Open questions
How can the neurodiversity paradigm better centre the experiences of autistic people with intellectual disability and very high support needs? What would a truly integrative model look like, one that takes seriously both the embodied reality of sensory difference and the social construction of disability? How do models of disability translate across cultures? The UPIAS-derived social model is a product of the UK disability movement; its applicability in other contexts is not automatic. How should clinical services navigate the tension between the medical model (which provides access to diagnosis and support) and the neurodiversity paradigm (which challenges the framing of autism as disorder)?