The social model of disability and autism: where the real barriers live
By Helen Edgar and David Gray-Hammond · From the Re-Storying Autism workbook, Module 2
The social model of disability shifts the source of disability away from the person and into the environment. A person is not disabled because they cannot tolerate fluorescent lighting; they are disabled because environments often insist upon using it. A person is not disabled because they cannot complete forms over the phone; they are disabled because essential services refuse to offer alternatives. For Autistic people, disability arises from:
- Inaccessible sensory and physical environments
- Communication styles that exclude Autistic ways of communicating
- Demand-heavy systems
- Rigid routines in schools and workplaces
- Poverty, precarity, and benefit-system hostility
- Discrimination based on behaviour, tone, or misunderstanding
- Inaccessible healthcare
- Ableist cultural expectations
- Neuronormative bias and expectations from other people
The social model powerfully highlights how barriers in society disable people, but it does not fully account for the embodied, sensory, cognitive, and pain-related realities many disabled and neurodivergent people experience.
Why the social model isn’t enough:
- It focuses almost entirely on external barriers, overlooking the impact of internal experiences such as sensory overload, chronic fatigue, interoception differences, or pain.
- It does not always reflect the lived experience of neurodivergent and Autistic people, whose challenges arise from both the environment and genuine bodymind differences.
- It can unintentionally minimise the need for support, accommodations, and care by suggesting barriers are purely social or environmental.
- It lacks an understanding of Autistic processing, attention styles
(e.g., monotropism), and sensory relational needs that shape daily life.
The social model is helpful, but not enough. A more holistic, relational, and ecosystemic approach—one that includes bodymind realities, sensory worlds, the impact of trauma, the value of community, and recognises systemic oppression—is needed to fully understand Autistic and disabled lived experience and enable people to thrive.
Keep going in the course
This is a short extract. The full lesson in Module 2: Identity, Language and Disability Models includes the video teaching, the rest of the workbook text, reflection questions for parents, carers and Autistic people, and progress tracking.