Georgia Burn

Project Description

Communication Access is an inclusion initiative designed to enable greater societal participation and inclusion of people with communication disability. Its global progress in research, policy development and practice has been hampered by a lack of overarching framework and nonspecific social model underpinning. This thesis presents a series of studies that investigate the appropriateness of the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to provide the necessary infrastructure, which has adopted the biopsychosocial (universalism) model of explaining disability. Through conducting a series of theoretical explorations, this program of research sheds light upon the ‘status quo’ theoretical position of communication disability and Communication Access: not one that adheres to biopsychosocial (universalism), but instead to a biopsychosocial (minority) interpretation. The consequences of aligning with such a position in terms of informing theoretical debates, as well as Communication Access-related social policy, practice and inclusion endeavours are hypothesised, and in doing so, an updated disability model is proposed.

Supervisors

Professor Keith McVilly, School of Social and Political Sciences
Dr Hilary Johnson, School of Health Sciences 
Dr Jerome Rachele, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health