Do Unto Others: Moving from deficit based leisure assessments for people with disabilities to mutual, collaborative and relational models

This paper contrastively examines two different approaches to leisure assessment. The paper takes a deconstructive and critical approach to examining the dominant Therapeutic Recreation model as outlined by Peterson and Stumbo (2000) arguing that the rhetorical focus on ability in this model masks its roots in a medical model of disability. A critique of the language and bodies of knowledge that inform this model, from a social model of disability, demonstrate its embeddedness in the medical model.In contrast, it is argued that diversional therapists and other leisure practitioners in the field of disability would find professional benefit in moving towards a model of assessment and service provision that is informed by a social model of disability. The social model of disability developed by Oliver (1996) offers a powerful critique of the medical model and of its disabling practices and institutions. An alternative approach to assessment that draws on social constructionist bodies of knowledge and on an ethics of dialogical and communicative understanding is proposed.