Origins & Definitions
This term frames brain differences as natural variations rather than abnormal flaws.
What is neurodiversity?
This model frames disability as an "impairment" that should be fixed so a person can be as "normal" as possible.
What is the medical model?
The disability rights movement gained major traction in this decade.
What is the 1970s?
The year the Disability Justice movement began.
What is 2005?
This is always a personal preference and not automatic for every neurodivergent person.
What is identifying as disabled?
This online mailing list, founded in 1996 by Dutch programmer Martijn Dekker, is where the concept of "neurodiversity" originally took shape.
What is InLv (Independent Living on the Autistic Spectrum)?
This model proposes that disability is caused by how society is designed, not by a person's body or diagnosis.
What is the social model?
This section of the Rehabilitation Act banned federally funded programs from discriminating against disabled people.
What is Section 504?
This framework centers the leadership of multiply marginalized disabled people, such as BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals.
What is Disability Justice?
This U.S. law does not provide a definitive, exhaustive list of covered conditions, instead evaluating how a condition affects a person's life.
What is the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)?
This person is often credited with bringing "neurodiversity" to the mainstream, though she was actually the first to use the word in an academic context.
Who is Judy Singer?
Under this model, the lack of a ramp, not the wheelchair, is the barrier.
What is the social model?
Activists held a 25-day sit-in at federal buildings in 1977 to enforce this law.
What is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act?
Disability Justice fights ableism alongside these two other systems.
What are white supremacy and capitalism?
These two federal bodies name specific conditions that "virtually always" or "easily" qualify as disabilities.
What are the EEOC and ADA.gov?
This is the broad, non-medical term for brain differences like Autism, ADHD, and dyslexia.
What is neurodivergence?
This model proposes disability may come from a person's difference alone, their interaction with society alone, or both combined.
What is the holistic model?
In this 1990 protest, advocates abandoned their wheelchairs and dragged themselves up the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
What is the Capitol Crawl?
Disability Justice prioritizes this over total independence.
What is collective care and interdependence?
Legally and clinically, disability is tied to this, not just the diagnosis itself.
What are functional limitations?
This factor determines whether neurodivergence qualifies as a disability for a given person.
What is the impact on daily functioning in an inaccessible world?
The social model was originally designed around mobility and sensory disabilities, leaving this type of disability less fully included.
What are chronic illnesses or mental health disabilities?
The disability rights movement drew its protest tactics, like sit-ins, from this broader era.
What is the civil rights era/movement?
This is the broader movement that Disability Justice evolved from.
What is the Disability Rights movement?
This brain difference is an example of neurodivergence that is not considered a disability.
What is synesthesia?