Many behavior analysts work with individuals who have physical, sensory, or intellectual impairments; are involved in services for people with disabilities; or have been exposed to the concept of disability. Michael Oliver's book attempts to analyze the development of the disability concept and show how it has affected, often negatively, the lives of people who have disabilities and the services they receive.
As a writer and critic in the field of disability for over 20 years, as well as someone who has experienced spinal injury and its aftermath, Oliver is in a good position to write this book. In the introduction, Oliver states that his original purpose was to collate his writing on disability into a single publication, but it became an account of the development of the concept of disability. As this development occurred, Oliver has been able to meld his personal experience of disability with his thinking and writing about the concept, and this book is the product.
The book embraces a broad and difficult area and covers an impressive range of topics concerning the concept of disability. Overall I found the book interesting, readable, and expansive. From a behavioral point of view, the book's major contribution is to reaffirm the importance of environment in determining behavior. It points to the expectations, beliefs, and stereotypes in the environments that surround people with disabilities, and how these can act as barriers to the acquisition of a range of skills and behaviors that may be of day-to-day concern to behaviorists. These behaviors are part of the competencies and roles that allow access to mainstream services, citizenship rights and responsibilities, and full societal membership. The book therefore reminds us to take cognizance of the broader social framework within which we live and work and the importance of dismantling such barriers.