Disability, Society, and the Individual

Headnote

In Review

Julie Smart

Aspen Publishers, Inc.

Gaithersburg, MD

2001, 357 pages, $49.00, soft cover

One of the challenges an individual encounters in reviewing many textbook is to comprehensively and yet succinctly provide the reader with a "preview" of an upcoming attraction. Disability, Society, and the Individual is an attraction that will prove to be a valuable resource for use by rehabilitation counselor educators and educators in the allied health profession. The author provides a very practical yet comprehensive approach to understanding the disability experience. The reviewer was particularly impressed by the utility of the book for rehabilitation counselor educators. It contains structured exercises and discussion questions, and supplemental resources that can be used in a variety of courses.

The reader will find an extensive array of topics, activities, and resources focusing on the disability experience. The book is divided into three major sections. The first section, Definitions of Disability, contains chapters covering definitions of disability and the various models of disabilities. The author begins Chapter I by posing the question "Does anyone know what normal is?" This question is followed by a discussion on the link between the academic discipline of statistics and eugenics and the purpose of categorizing disabilities. Chapter 2 examines three central models of disability including the medical, environmental, and functional models. This chapter further leads the reader into a review of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the need for person-first language.

The second section, Society and Disability, focuses on several sources and effects of prejudice and discrimination...