An individual with a disability is more like people without disabilities than different. As expressed in the U.S. Developmental Disabilities Act having a disability is a natural part of the human experience. Today's conformist insight about disability is based on the Medical Model: identify the problem, and then provide a cure. This model places the problem of disability within the person, so treatments and services attempt to "fix" the person: helping him achieve an "able-bodied" standard through therapies and other interventions or placing him in special, sheltered, segregated settings in order to "get him ready" for life in the real world. In the minds of many, these efforts will resolve the "problem" of disability. But the problem never has been the disability; the problem is society's beliefs about disability.

Children with disabilities often spend countless hours and days receiving special services and attending special programs and in the process, their natural and joyous childhoods may be lost. Further, adults with disability, instead of working at the jobs of their choice and living in the homes of their choice with the support they need to succeed, may spend their days in sheltered, segregated day programs or workshops, and their nights are spent in group homes or other segregated, congregate environments. As one day passes into the next, so their lives pass by. Their hopes are dashed, their dreams are unfulfilled, and opportunities to lead real lives evaporate.

If educators and the society at large perceived children with disabilities as individuals who have the potential to learn, who have the need for the same education as their brothers and sisters, and who have a future in the adult world of work, we wouldn’t have to fight for comprehensive education. Further, if employers believed adults with disabilities have valuable job skills and can contribute to the success of a business, we wouldn’t have to fight for real jobs for real pay in the real community. And if business owners view people with disabilities as consumers with money to spend, we wouldn’t have to fight for accessible entrances and other accommodations.

The problem with disability results from a hostile environment that does not accommodate persons with disabilities and that assigns them an inferior status. Thus, the experience of individuals with disabilities should be addressed inclusively and procedurally through awareness of the shared experiences of disability in terms of the designation of inferior status; an understanding of the differences that exist as they relate to culture, race, and gender; the creation of assignments that include disability issues as content; and the use of examples/reading selections that depict positive and realistic images of individuals with disabilities.