UNDERSTANDING DISABILITY AND THE SOURCE OF STIGMA: DISABILITY IS NOT A STIGMA, THE SOCIETAL ATTITUDES ARE THE STIGMA

The stigmatizing experiences of persons living with disabilities is seen to have a genesis from the societal attitudes towards persons living with disabilities. People in the society have a general thought that persons with disabilities must go through some form of problems. It is indeed a fact that persons with disabilities, once in a while, go through some form of problems, but this is not exclusively in any way fully attached to their disabilities.

 

What the society need to understand is the fact that persons with disabilities, have, in most cases, adopted ways of living their lives which in the end accommodate their disabilities thus making them not persons with limited abilities but rather persons who are abled differently. By and large, the most issue that relates to the lives of persons with disabilities is not in their conditions, it is what they encounter as a result of what is created in the minds of the people around them or rather the people they interact with or the aspects in the built environment, this is clearly not things that are intrinsic to persons with disabilities.

 

The societal attitudes and the environmental design are the most things that bother persons with disabilities. this therefore means that the society, in a very great way, hinders the independence of persons with disabilities. INDEPENDENCE is the word here. This is simply the aspect of not being able to do things that the rest of the society may take for granted.