Entre la discapacitat i la diversitat funcional: El professional davant dels canvis de paradigmes i no només de paraules

In any discipline, changes in terminology are important to the extent that there is an evolution in that field. In the case of disability and functional diversity there is not simply a change of words but a conceptual shift that has generated substitutions of vocabulary in which the new terms
are not synonymous with those they have replaced. The paradigm shifts over the last decade to which we are referring here are beginning
to have an impact on many levels, not least the academic, social and political, and as with any complex mechanism, the change of one part posits the need for changes in the others. From this point of view these shifts in the conception of disability and functional diversity are engendering significant changes in the way that services are generated. At the same time a good deal of importance attaches to new developments at the attitudinal and relational level established by professionals in social education and social work with regard to people with functional diversity.