t agree with either of the two models (neither), whereas the remaining part (≈ 20% 6–8 years; ≈ 30% 9–11 years; ≈ 50% parents) agreed with the social model. The lack of preference for a mixed model could be due to the inherent cognitive dissonance between the individual and the social model. What has been affirmed theoretically and politically [5, 6, 15–17], namely, the dichotomous nature of those two models has been confirmed in this research at a psychological level.
The correlation between the two composite measures again revealed an effect of social desirability: The sharp adhesion to the individual model in the open-ended questionnaires seems masked behind the “neither” agreement in the closed-ended questionnaires.
Children’s and parents’ models and custom complex variables
Whereas there was no correlations between the children of 6–8 years and their parents about the disability representations, correlations emerged between the children of 9–11 years and their parents. Children, as they grow older, tended to align with the viewpoints of their parents. The parental education permeated cognitive constraints, dominated by the individual model, by injecting more cultural representation of disability, i.e., the social model. Significant correlations were evident between the children’s models of any group and their levels of knowledge and stereotypes: A high level of knowledge was positively correlated with the expression of the social model, whereas a high level of stereotypes correlated with a greater appreciation of the individual model. These findings confirm, at a psychological level, what was extensively investigated from a sociological perspective by disability studies since the late 1960s (for an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the main issues in the field of disability studies around the world today Watson and colleagues ), namely, the effect of custom complex variables on child’s disability attitudes and stereotypes (see, among many others [54–57]).
The present research verified whether children’s disability representations are influenced by cultural variables (e.g., social activities, parent education, and custom complex variables) or by cognitive constraints. At an early age, children have a disability representation characterized by a vision of the person with disability mainly as sick and whose diversity is strictly connected to health. This early disability representation of children is consistent with the individual model of disability and independent from parents’ disability explanations and representations. This finding supports that children are not completely permeable to social representations of disability because of cognitive constraints. Nevertheless, children appear educable on perspectives of disability adhering to a model of disability representation integral with social context and parent perspective. This is evident because the children tend to espouse their parents representations as they grow up.
Another cultural effect on children is observable from the stereotype decreasing in correspondence with an increasing level of knowledge about disability. Children’s cognitive maturity reduces stereotypes toward people with disability. These findings are also in line with those of the study previously carried out by the authors with the Implicit Association Test . In this study the authors found that, on an implicit level, disability is strongly associated with a negative and unpleasant dimension of existence (i.e., bad and ill) with concepts that characterize the individual model. In fact, the individual model was found, in the present research, universal in children and maybe more developmentally primitive—i.e., it is acquired very early or is innate and provides for the development of all other concepts . For all the children, people with disability are disabled because they are sick. Moreover, the individual model remains in the background for the adults too, emerging when the respondents rely on their most immediately available mental representation of disability or to an automatic cog