Room for maneuver on the disability situation

To overcome the difficulties that people with disabilities face, interventions to remove environmental and social barriers are necessary. Support measures are put in place to improve the life and integration of these people in society.

Explanatory model of the situation of disability

To understand the handicap situation, we can base ourselves on the model of human development and handicap production process proposed by Fougeyrollas in 2010.

According to this model, the situation of disability results from three main factors: personal factors, environmental factors and an individual’s lifestyle. These three factors interact with each other over time and cause, or not, a handicap situation, that is to say a brake on integration into life in society and / or in carrying out an activity.

Personal factors correspond to the characteristics (psychological, social, cultural, physiological, etc.) of an individual. For example, in our research, people have varying degrees of visual impairment. It is not possible for us to act on these characteristics but we must take them into account in the development of a support system.

Life habits correspond to the activities of a person’s daily life. We cannot impose a lifestyle on a person. We can encourage him to adopt a healthier one (reduce his tobacco consumption for example) but we cannot go against an individual’s free will. We must take these lifestyle habits into account in order to offer suitable support systems.

Environmental factors correspond to an individual’s living environment. This can be described in two ways: facilitator – element of the environment that promotes participation in life in society – and obstacle – element of the environment that hinders participation in life in society.

We can act on the environment and modify it so that, depending on the characteristics of individuals and their lifestyle, it is a facilitator in participation in life in society and no longer an obstacle.