Historically, impairment is seen as something devastating if it happened, especially to a child. “…feel the blighting touch of accident or disease…burdening them with the life-long grief of a visitation worse than and more dreaded than even death itself” (Powell, 1896, p. 16-17). Although it is not as extreme, this viewpoint is the basis for the medical model of disability and cure culture. Because disability is seen as a “failing that tragically ‘handicaps’ those ‘afflicted’” …show more content…
For example, the moral imbecile is seen as someone who is born with “an inverted perversion of the sense of right and wrong” (Powell, 1896, p. 21). Powell believes that some people are inherently born with impaired morals instead of these morals being taught by the child’s families and teachers. This is a change from his original opinion in which the child is born as a blank slate with their environment influencing them which means that the moral imbecile is born abnormal. Another category of children who was put into the feeble-minded category were the epileptic. Along with the moral imbecile, Powell thought that the best way to care for these children were to isolate them from society and detain them in a special institution (moral imbeciles) or in a special colony (epileptic) (Powell,