Bit by bit, humans make models of the world to try and make sense of it. This is as true for disability as it is for astrophysics or evolutionary biology. In my contribution to Stammering Pride and Prejudice, I outlined just four ways that disability has been modeled: “a cosmic sign in the religious model, a biological pathology in the medical model, a social oppression in the social model, [and] a political relation in the aptly named political/relational model” (2019, 12).
The way that we think about disability matters because – to indulge in medical language – how we diagnose a problem will shape its treatment. If stammering is nothing but pathology, a sad deviation from a normal human life, then to treat the problem is to fix each individual stammerer. On the other hand, if stammering is a complex interaction of multiple forces, the “problem” must be redefined and located elsewhere: in, for example, oppressive stereotypes, pressures of time, and inhospitable listening practices.