“Disabled person” or “person with a disability”?
I prefer identity first language out of succinctness. But people have different opinions; it’s a style/rhetorical choice. Autistics like to claim they were preferring identity-first language; it’s true that they have the most public-relations on the matter. But autism spectrum d/o’s aren’t the only disabilities or neurodevelopmental conditions; people with disabilities have a plethora of opinions. Whether someone accepts that they have a disability, or if we disclose it at work, doesn’t obviate the legal requirement in the United States to accommodate them.
Wheelchair Linguistics Note
“Wheelchair bound” and “confined to a wheelchair” are ableist; open your Associated Press stylebook and use wheelchair user (or “person who uses a wheelchair”, or WC user or “P.W.C.” for power wheelchair user) instead. Be like KNKX-FM Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick and get a gold star for your copy on Twitter. If you’re an internist and you use this in your chart notes, I will reach out to demand a note be added to my file per HIPAA; if you’re a clinician and I can message you in an electronic health records system, I will do so. Or I may send a facsimile.
Books and Scientific Literature
- Black, Sheila, et al. The Right Way to be Crippled and Naked: The Fiction of Disability: An Anthology (my review for the Deaf Poets Society can be found here)
- Heumman, Judith. Being Heuman (also available as an audiobook)
- Heumann, Judith. Rolling Warrior.
- Johnson, Harriet McBryde. Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life.
- Rosenbaum, Peter. GMFCS E&R.
Articles
- Drake, Stephen. “Peter Singer’s ‘Tribute’ to Harriet Johnson – and Paul Longmore’s Response” Not Dead Yet.
- Johnson, Harriet McBryde. “Why Congress Was Right to Stick Up for Terri Schiavo“. Slate (reprint)
- Springen, Karen. “The Will to Walk“. Stanford Magazine: Notice how a newly disabled life is so devalued.
Last Updated: 20 May 2009.