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Human Services |
Choosing Words with Dignity
People with disabilities, like other protected status groups, are actively seeking full civil rights. They want to be accepted in their communities as equals.
Your portrayal of individuals with disabling conditions can greatly affect the public's perception of their worth. What you write and what you say can enhance the dignity of people with disabilities and promote positive attitudes about their abilities.
Let your descriptive words emphasize the person's worth and abilities, not the disabling condition. Refer to the person first rather than the disability. The phrase "people with disabilities" is preferred, for instance, over "the disabled," which tends to emphasize the disability and creates the image of an unusual and homogeneous group:
| Appropriate Terminology | Inappropriate Terminology |
| Person who is blind, or is visually impaired | The blind |
| Person who is deaf, or is hearing impaired | Suffers a hearing loss |
| Person who has multiple sclerosis | Afflicted by MS |
| Person with cerebral palsy | CP victim |
| Person affected by muscular dystrophy | Stricken by MD |
| Person with mental retardation | Retarded; mentally defective |
| Person with epilepsy, or with seizure disorder | Epileptic |
| Person who uses a wheelchair | Confined or restricted to a wheelchair |
| Person without disabilities, non-disabled person | Normal person (implies person with a disability isn't normal) |
| Unable to speak | non-verbal Dumb, mute |
| Person with physical disability | Cripple, lame, deformed |