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Communicating With And About People With Disabilities
Words to Use When Writing or Speaking About People With Disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), other legislation, and the efforts of many disability organizations have begun to improve accessibility in buildings, increase access to education, open employment opportunities, and develop realistic portrayals of persons with disabilities in television programming and motion pictures. However, more progress needs to be made. Many people still view persons with disabilities as individuals to be pitied, feared, or ignored. These attitudes may arise from discomfort with individuals who are perceived to be different or simply from a lack of information. Listed below are some suggestions on how to relate and communicate with and about people with disabilities. We must look beyond the disability and look at the individual's ability and capability -- the things that make each of us unique and worthwhile.
Positive language empowers. When writing or speaking about people with disabilities, it is important to put the person first. Group designations such as "the blind," "the deaf" or "the disabled" are inappropriate because they do not reflect the individuality, equality, or dignity of people with disabilities. Following are examples of positive and negative phrases. Note that the positive phrases put the person first.
| AFFIRMATIVE PHRASES | NEGATIVE PHRASES |
|---|---|
| person with mental retardation | retarded, mentally defective |
| person who is blind, person who is visually impaired | the blind |
| person with a disability | the disabled, handicapped |
| person who is deaf, person who is hard of hearing | suffers a hearing loss, the deaf |
| person who has multiple sclerosis | afflicted by MS |
| person with cerebral palsy | CP victim |
| person with epilepsy, person with seizure disorder | epileptic |
| person who uses a wheelchair | confined or restricted to a wheelchair |
| person who has muscular dystrophy | stricken by MD |
| physically disabled | crippled, lame, deformed |
| person without a disability | normal person (implies that the person with a disability isn’t normal) |
| unable to speak, uses synthetic speech | dumb, mute |
| seizure | fit |
| successful, productive | has overcome his/her disability; courageous (when it implies the person has courage because of having a disability) |
| person with psychiatric disability | crazy, nuts |
| person who no longer lives in an institution | the deinstitutionalized |
| says she/he has a disability | admits she has a disability |
| The information for these links came from three sources: The President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, Guidelines to Reporting and Writing About People with Disabilities, produced by the Media Project, Research and Training Center on Independent Living, 4089 Dole, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, and Ten Commandments of Etiquette for Communicating with People with Disabilities, National Center for Access Unlimited, 155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 315, Chicago, IL 60606. October, 1995 | |
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