The Americans with Disabilities Act as engine of social change: Models of disability and the potential of a civil rights approach

The Americans With Disabilities Act, based on the civil rights/minority group and independent living models of disability, may enhance access to health care, personal assistance, employment, the electoral process, and smoke-free environments for people with disabilities. However, this essential law

The Status of People With Disabilities

The 1998 National Organization on Disability (NOD)/Harris Survey of People With Disabilities drew the following disturbing conclusions concerning people with disabilities in our society:

This survey has found that Americans with disabilities continue to lag well behind other Americans in many of the most basic aspects of life, as previous Harris studies found in 1986 and 1994. Large gaps still exist between adults with disabilities and other adults with regard to employment, education, income, frequency of socializing and other basic measures in ten major 'indicator' areas of life. Furthermore, most of these gaps show little evidence of narrowing. In some cases, the gaps have even widened (Louis Harris and Associates, 1998, p. 5).