Another thinking point, in my daily work of training HE students with assistive technology I am constantly reminded that "disability" comes in a myriad of seen and unseen forms. I am also aware that we are probably scraping the tip of the iceberg still with diagnosis and acceptance of disabilities. Many students receive a diagnosis late in their years or late in their studies, i.e they are not diagnosed until working at university level, these of course are students with hidden learning disabilities such as dyslexia. I increasingly loathe the term disability too as I see these issues as differences not disabilities. My own son has differences, both hidden (badly!) and unhidden as he stammers and suffers from ADHD and Dyspraxia - the stammer is obvious but to me so is a lot of the ADHD behavior.
I feel its time to re-name disability as difference, but then I also feel its time to re-name racism as ignorance.
In the ebook I was struck by this sentence
"The way we define and understand disability has the potential to have a significant impact on the learning experiences of students with disabilities." (Seale, 2006)
True to form I mindmapped the terminology for the different models - colour coding them for those which I think are socially acceptable in todays society.
Seale, J. (2006). E-learning and disability in higher education. London: Routledge.