Framing disability among young adults with disabilities and non-disabled young adults: an exploratory study

To explore how young adults frame disability and to compare the meanings of disability between persons with and without disabilities.

Snow ball sampling was used to recruit the participants. The sample comprised of 14 young adults from Upstate New York area; nine were non-disabled, five had a physical disability. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data.

Five themes emerged from the analysis: disability as a deviation from "the norm", disability as inability, disability as something one needs to overcome, the role of the environment in disability, and disability as a negative phenomenon. The findings suggest that persons with disabilities hold somewhat different meanings of disability compared with non-disabled persons.

While the biomedical frame of disability was somewhat challenged, disability is mainly understood via a biomedical lens. Disability should be framed as form of human diversity, not as a mark of Cain.