Rights-Based and Person-Centered Approaches to Supporting People With Intellectual Disability: A Dialectical Model.

Glicksman et al. (2017) wrote a theory paper. They asked how staff can protect legal rights and still honor personal choice for adults with intellectual disability.

The authors built a dialectical model. Dialectical means holding two ideas at once and letting them shape each other. Every support decision must balance both rights and person-centered goals.

The model gives staff a thinking map. Step one: list the client’s legal rights. Step two: list the client’s personal hopes. Step three: weave the two lists into one plan.

No step cancels the other. If a right seems to block a goal, staff adjust the goal, not erase the right.

Saunders et al. (1988) came first. That paper listed six hard rights, like the right to effective treatment. Glicksman et al. (2017) keeps those rights but adds the soft side—what the person actually wants.

Adams et al. (2024) interviewed adults with IDD and families. They found real-world tools: trusted friends, phone apps, early practice. These tools fit inside the person-centered half of the 2017 dialectic.

Burke et al. (2018) surveyed 388 parents. Parents listed barriers to future planning—paperwork, fear, time. The dialectical model gives staff language to honor both the parent’s worry and the adult’s right to plan.

Use the dialectic at every team meeting. Write two columns on a whiteboard: Rights and Wants. Make the team fill both before writing goals. This keeps plans legal and personal at the same time.