- Aristotle's definition of rhetoric
- Autism as Aristotle's rhetoric
- Dilip Gaonkar's definition of rhetoric
- Autism as Gaonkar's rhetoric
- What these rhetorical constructions have in common
- Effects of autism as rhetoric

Autism As Rhetoric

- The media and autism as rhetoric
- Autistic community discourses and autism as rhetoric
- Cultural forces and autism as rhetoric 

Forces That Shape Autism As Rhetoric

- How Rhetoric and Social Construction Create "Truth"


The Implications of Autism as Rhetoric and Whiteness

In the following nodes, I use identity first language to refer to autistic individuals. I chose to use this language because it is the language I use as an autistic individual, it is the language used in the article, and it is the language preferred by a majority of autistic individuals in the United States (where the research and researcher for this article is based). 

A Note on Language Useage

In this piece, Paul Heilker examines autism as a form of rhetoric and how the various forces, media portrays, autistic community understandings, and cultural forces, work to construct autism as an overwhelmingly white phenomenon in public discourses. 

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Children nodes connected include several alternate ways of classifying and defining disability

- Medical Model 
- Social Model
- Identity Model
- Human Rights Model
- Cultural Model
- Economic Model
- Charity Model
- Limits Model
- Cultural Model
- Educational Model
- Functional Model
- Materialist Social Model

Conflicting Models and Definitions of Disability

Heilker, P. (2012). Autism, rhetoric, and Whiteness. Disability Studies Quarterly, 32(4). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v32i4.1756 

Autism, Rhetoric, and Whiteness

A classification method developed by the World Health Organization to model the impacts of a disability on a person's life. In this model, disability has three components, or dimensions, in which effects of disability can be observed. These are based on impairment, activity limitation, and participation restrictions. Any particular disability may cause a positive or negative effect in all or only some of these categories. 





Three Dimensions of Disability Classification Model

The medical model positions a disability as something that must be diagnosed and addressed with medical intervention. It views disabilities as something that reduces a person’s quality of life, curing the disability as the ultimate goal. Also, the medical model promotes the image of people with disabilities as needing health care or as “sick”. Many people with the philosophy of the medical model underestimate the human capacity to learn about the complexities of the human body, and thus to make safe decisions about one’s disability.

Medical Model of Disability

The social model positions society as the disabling agent, rather than an individual’s impairment. Under the social model, an impairment is not automatically a disability. It is only a disability when society is not structured (physically, socially, or culturally) to include that impairment/variation. For example, in a society where glasses/corrective lenses are accessible and socially accepted, the impairment of having blurry vision without them is not necessarily disabling. The social model seeks to make changes in society, rather than focusing on disabled people to change.

Social Model of Disability

This model is considered to be a more nuanced approach of the social/political view of disability studies, ranging from medical to socio-political views. It explored disabilities as the interaction with the societies around them, as it was believed that one's disability is a product of the environment and bodily factors.

Cultural Model View of Disabilities

People that view disability from an educational perspective often see people with disabilities as needing assistance to become more like the rest of “us”. The problem with this view is that it promotes low expectations of people with disabilities, and assumes unequal relationships.This philosophy also assumes successful people with disabilities are heroic , inspirational, role-models, and/or courageous. 

Educational model of demeaning disability-friendly terminology

Alison Kafer determines that the political/relational model differs from the social model because it includes lived experiences of people with disabilities, in addition to potential medical treatments. 

Political/relational Model 

The Functional Model constructs disability in more subjective terms and takes into account how their impairment affects the functioning of a specific individual based on their daily purpose and tasks.  

The Functional Model of Disability 

Developed by Michael Oliver, this model represents disability as culturally-constructed through centuries of medical thinking and knowledge systems. It argues disability concepts are deployed to attribute individual causes for systematic exclusion of certain bodies and minds. The model examines how medical discourse creates categories that justify social exclusion. It emphasizes material conditions and power structures behind disability construction.

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