**4. Concepts of disability**

ASD is predominantly conceived as a medical condition based on DSM or ICD definitions. The medical model tends to believe that the curing or managing of disability generally or com‐ pletely, revolves around identifying the illness or disability from an 'in-depth' clinical perspective involving doctors, therapists and psychologists. The irony is that ASD even in the medical sources is defined based on its behavioural manifestation rather than clinical symp‐ toms. Sole reliance on a medical condition sits outside modern conceptions of disability that acknowledge environmental influences such as family and society on a child/person's level of functioning. These may be particularly crucial in developing countries with their poor service infrastructures at local and national.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF, WHO, 2002) is an updated framework for the description of health and health-related states. The classification is focused on health and health-related domains based on what a person with a health condition can do in a standard environment compared to what they actually do in their usual environment (comparing the level of capacity to the level of performance). Thus social and environmental factors can have a major influence on a child's level of functioning in addition to any medical and disability condition.

The ICF also embodied the thinking in the bio-psycho-social frameworks which have been proposed in disability and mental health in which different biological, psychological, and social influences are brought together [8]. As Engel argues there is a reciprocal rather than a linear relationship between all these three main factors. According to this model, although a specific disability may require primary attention at the biological level – such as hearing impairment-it will also have an impact on psychological factors and both factors in turn may influence the social system of the person with disability and their parents. Thus ICF provides a comprehensive view of factors involving health, illness and health care and explains and understands individual behaviour in particular contexts.
