Understanding Personal Autonomy, Habits, and Abilities
Autonomy
A person is autonomous when they can meet their needs without requiring assistance. It includes two aspects:
- Personal Autonomy: Daily life, which is divided into:
- Personal care: Feeding, hygiene, rest, awareness of dangers (fire), and use of instruments.
- Environment: Order, work, and community.
- Socio-social: Interpersonal relations (speaking, listening, being empathetic, etc.).
The HAP (presumably Human Autonomy Process, though not explicitly defined) is learned from birth and depends on two factors: the environment and genetic determination.
Habit
Habits are learned behaviors that become automatic, flexible, and consistent. This allows the individual to adapt to different situations.
Skills
Skills are closely linked to capacity. Execution is the ability or competence displayed in a product through learning and innate disposition. (Skills are what you have to perform a task.) Different components of ability:
- Driving: How it is, what movement. It is the most observable.
- Cognitive: This is what you think. There is inhibition (e.g., “I can not do it”) or stimulation (e.g., “It can be done”).
- Psychophysiological: These are the emotional responses attached to behavior (e.g., blushing).
- Psychosocial: These are cultural aspects that are manifested in behavior (e.g., children from families with high purchasing power have a certain vocabulary).
Ability
Ability is the fitness, willingness, and aptitude to do something. The capacity must have social integration: technical, physical, psychological, and social.
Routine
A routine is a personal and custom machining convenience, adamant not to change or even create a specific skill. We used to memorize. Example: Leaving the keys in the hall.
Conduct
Conduct is the way of a person, and the set of actions performed to adapt to their environment. Two principles:
- Conduct refers to what the person says or does, even if not directly observable.
- Conduct always requires the interaction of individuals with their environment, so any behavior must be defined within the context in which it takes place.
Factors that determine conduct:
- Innate (e.g., temperament)
- Learned through their own experiences (e.g., character)
Behavior
Behavior is the conduct of an individual in a certain space and time.
Deficiency
According to WHO, a deficiency is any loss or abnormality of a structure (member, organ, tissue, etc.) or psychological, physiological, or anatomical function. Example: A blind person with a visual impairment.
Disability
Disability is any restriction or lack (due to an impairment) of ability to perform an activity as (or within the margin) considered normal for human beings. It can be temporary or permanent.
Impairment
According to the WHO, impairment is considered a disadvantageous situation for an individual, a specific consequence of a deficiency or disability that limits or prevents the development of a role that is normal in their case (depending on age, sex, social, and cultural factors). Example: A blind person with visual impairment may have a disability to perform an action such as driving a car.
Dependence
Dependence can be considered as the result of a misfit or inappropriate operation of a person to solve the basic activities of their environment, what is the authorization of human resources, social or material for its realization. Involves the lack of autonomy of the person to interact with their environment. Types:
- Personal or social dependence: The consequence is the lack of significant relationships that will help them in their adjustment process.
- Physical dependence: Suppose the lack of control of their bodily functions and movement.
- Economic dependence: The lack of economic resources, generally linked to the impossibility or difficulty accessing the job market.
- Psychic dependence: It occurs when a person does not have the capacity to make their own decisions.