The Power of Language and Labels

People with disabilities constitute our nation's largest minority group (one of five Americans has a disability). It is also the most inclusive and most diverse: both genders, any sexual orientation, and all ages, religions, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels are represented. Yet people who have been diagnosed with disabilities are all different from one another. The only thing they have in common is being on the receiving end of societal misunderstanding, prejudice, and discrimination. Furthermore, this largest minority group is the only one which any person can join at any time! You can join at birth or later, through an accident, illness, or the aging process. If and when it happens to you, will you have more in common with others who have disability diagnoses or with family, friends, and co-workers? How will you want to be described? And how will you want to be treated?

A Change in Attitude Can Change Everything.

If educators believed children with disabilities are boys and girls with the potential to learn, who need the same quality of education as their brothers and sisters, and who have a future in the adult world of work, we wouldn't have millions of children being segregated and undereducated in special ed classrooms.

If employers believed adults with disabilities have (or could learn) valuable job skills, we wouldn't have an estimated (and shameful) 75 percent unemployment rate of people with disabilities. If merchants saw people with disabilities as customers with money to spend, we wouldn't have so many inaccessible stores, theaters, restrooms, and more. If the service system identified people with disabilities as "customers," instead of "clients/consumers/recipients," perhaps it would begin to meet a person's real needs (like inclusion, friendships, etc.) instead of trying to remediate his "problems."

And if individuals with disabilities and family members saw themselves as first-class citizens who can and should be fully included in all areas of society, we might focus on what’s really important: living a Real Life in the Real World, enjoying ordinary opportunities and experiences and dreaming big dreams (like people without disabilities), instead of living a Special Life in Disability World, where low expectations, isolation, segregation, poverty, and hopelessness are the norm.

People With Disabilities are People First

Read more about People First Language and commentary by Kathie Snow.