Normalization (people With Disabilities) - History

History

The principle of normalization was developed in Scandinavia during the sixties and was first developed and articulated by Bengt Nirje.

The principle was developed during the seventies, especially by Wolfensberger in Canada through the National Institute on Mental Retardation (NIMR).

Normalization has had a significant effect on the way services for people with disabilities have been structured throughout the UK, Europe, North America, Australasia and increasingly, other parts of the world. It has led to a new conceptualisation of disability as not simply being a medical issue (the medical model which saw the person as indistinguishable from the disorder), but as a social situation. Government reports began from the 1970s to reflect this, e.g. the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board report of 1981 made recommendations on “the rights of people with intellectual handicaps to receive appropriate services, to assert their rights to independent living so far as this is possible, and to pursue the principle of normalization.”

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