comment: >
  
  
  if you can't concentrate to the point of being incapable of basic daily tasks
  
  The problem, even with your definition, is that society determines what constitutes a “basic daily task.” Concentrating on schoolwork while a smartphone exists in your pocket is now considered a basic daily task for most students. Even 20 years ago, that wasn’t a basic daily task.
  If you could go back in time and give a classroom of 1990s students smartphones and tell them “you still need to pay attention or else you have a disability. This is now one of your basic daily tasks,” I think you’d immediately see an increase in ADHD. They didn’t have ADHD prior to that. They had the full ability to focus on their basic daily tasks as defined in the 1990s.
  
  it isn't what most people mean when they read or say that phrasing
  
  Certainly if someone’s body changed and society’s expectations of sight remained constant, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who claims society’s expectations caused the disability.
  But what I think happened with ADHD is the reverse of that. Brains stayed the same, and society’s expectations of the base level of entertaining distractions changed. In that case, I think you do see people talking this way. People say things like “all these smart phones are giving kids ADHD.” My position is that maybe that’s not a crazy way of looking at it.
context: The problem with this analysis is that it doesn't engage with a theory of causality. Just because society is involved in the definition of "disability" or in the categorization of things as disabilities, doesn't mean that those disabilities are caused by society.
  By analogy, which things are called "blue" is determined by society. That doesn't mean that the sky being blue is caused by society. >
  
  Society defines what a mental disability is, therefore if you meet that definition then you are considered mentally disabled. However, the extent that societies definition CAUSES your disability is limited to that of a label, there is no physical manifestation of that.
  Psychologists look at the broad range of human behavior and defines what is typical, if you fall outside that typical range then they have conjured up some labels to help categorize.
  So, human behaviors never changed, it's just that we have built complex ways of sorting them.
  I suspect the same is true of physical disability. >
  
  I think you are conflating a kind of moral stance with semantics.
  If the social model makes certain things disabilities by society's expectations then you are arguing that means society creates all disabilities. But this means that if a woman was walking down the street and had acid thrown in her face, damaging her eyes to the point of not being able to see, you are saying that society made her disabled. The person who threw the acid blinded her but society made her disabled by expecting people to be able to see and labeling blindness a disability.
  That can be an internally consistent way of talking about it but it isn't what most people mean when they read or say that phrasing, and I don't know how useful that terminology is. In the case of rolling the tongue sure, it is only an issue because society expects it from people. But there are some capabilities that are intrinsic to being a human, independent of social expectations. If you are a quadraplegic you have a lack of ability which is important regardless of what society expects from the common man.
  Similarly if you can't concentrate to the point of being incapable of basic daily tasks then regardless of society labeling it a disability the problem exists, and society didn't create it. You might as well say that the English language is responsible for all disabilities because without the word they wouldn't be "disabled".