Models of Rehabilitation and Evidence of Their Effectiveness: Production & Movements of Disability Knowledge, Skill & Design within the Cultures and Concepts of Southern Africa.

This address begins with a study of self-help by a Mozambican in the 1590s and then imagines a period between the years 2050 to 2150, during which women caring for people with disabilities abolish the need for specialist educational, medical and social services, by multiplying and democratizing the necessary knowledge, skills and design to make them universally available. The paper urges that the cultural and conceptual bases of professional training, originating in Europe, be replaced by local culture and concepts rooted in regional experiences and disability histories. Various models of service provision and evidence of their effectiveness are outlined, including family self-help, traditional healers and teachers, modern centers, and activities described as "Community Based Rehabilitation." It is argued that the worldwide occurrence of causal integration of children with disabilities in ordinary schools has been ignored in policy formulation, suggesting that research evidence does not necessarily affect national policy if it contradicts popular beliefs. The address ends with an appeal for African cultural contributions to research. Appended resource materials include a bibliography of 932 materials from Angola, Botswana, D.R. Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, concerning social, educational, developmental, and medical responses to disabilities. (CR)