Communication Group Wireless Enabled Remote Co-presence (WERC) Disability Resources Mobility Tricycle Project. Mali Water and Disabilities Study Macha Oxygen Concentrator Project. Education Group Burkina Summer Enrichment Program at the Center for the Advancement of the Handicapped (CAH) in the village of Mahadaga,.
Language is a socially shared code for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-governed combinations of those symbols.
and words can really hurt you!
The autistic person The crippled kid The disabled people The lady who is wheelchair bound He suffers from cerebral palsy He’s in special education Normal kids
Focus on the person first, the disability last. When needed or required describe what the person HAS, not WHAT he/she IS. Remember that no one “suffers from,” or “is afflicted with” or is a “victim of” anything! Nor is anyone “wheelchair-bound.” There are people who USE wheelchairs...nothing else! People are not “bound” by their wheelchairs. Their wheelchairs allow them the freedom to go where they want to go!
People with disabilities. My son has autism. She has Down Syndrome. He is a person with a seizure disorder. He uses a wheelchair. She has short stature. He has no speech. She has a learning disability. He is a person who has…. She has an emotional disturbance. He has quadriplegia, paraplegia, etc…. She receives Special Ed Services. Accessible parking. Typical instead of “normal”
He is orthopedically impaired. The developmentally disabled girl. The autistic. She’s wheelchair bound. He suffers from cerebral palsy. Handicapped parking. The mentally retarded. He has an orthopedic disability. She has a developmental disability The man who has autism. She uses a wheelchair. He has cerebral palsy. Accessible parking. People with intellectual disability.
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elated elated General Rule of Thumb Do not label ! If you must use People First Language in your spoken and written language.