The main objective of the article was to investigate the claim that the capability approach fares better with an understanding of disability as presented by the World Health Organization's "International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health" (ICF) than by the social model, which has been promoted within disability studies. Scholars have looked to the capability approach as innovative and important perspective for re-examination of disability within special needs education and disability studies. Based on a critique of the social model, scholars point to the capability approach as an alternative and suggest that the ICF is a better framework for the conceptualisation and understanding of disability within special needs education. In this article, I investigate these claims and analyse which understanding of disability is most apposite to a capability-based theory as a framework for special education. In response, I propose a refined version of the social model, the social-"relational" model, as a better framework for an understanding of disability because this understanding is more in line with the insights and contributions of the capability approach. (Contains 3 tables.)