Marketing disability services for autistic people: A social model approach

Despite significant legislative changes, people continue to be disabled in a wide-range of ways and across a range of contexts. The medical model has dominated historical approaches to disability, limiting the nature and scope of understanding the true accounts of disability and the potential value of the social model to society. More work is required using the social model of disability, as a valuable tool to shift the locus of the problem towards the discriminating practices of society, which is the focus of this research.

Whilst research concerning disability is gaining momentum, many areas remain under researched. In particular, studies using the social model of disability to analyse the lived experience of autistic people throughout the labour market has received relatively scarce attention. By applying a social model of understanding to contexts such as recruitment, the potential exists to offer applied understanding of society’s engagement with disabled individuals and, in particular, to those diagnosed with ASD. This research begins by tracing the historical development of the disability movement, and the consequent social model of disability. It further explores how disability is conceptualised throughout contexts and will suggest approaches for marketing agencies to recruit and retain autistic people. This research takes a new direction, integrating the social model throughout interdisciplinary studies to account for lived experiences within the 21st century and contribute towards an enabling society.