This school year I decided to work on-campus at a worksite called Propel. Propel is an agency overseen by the psychology department that helps students with disabilities in their endeavors in college. They provide classes that help the students learn how to study and do their own personal finance. They also learn important skills such as learning how to take notes, do homework assignments and prepare for presentations. I am a mentor for a couple of students and I help them with various aspects that range from academics to socializing. Notice, though, I said students with disabilities and not disabled students. You may not think that there is a difference in saying students with disabilities and disabled students, but I’m here to tell you that there is. That difference is called person-first language.
Person-first language is a type of language where you put the person first rather than the disability they have. Before anything, they are a person, who just happens to HAVE a disability. They are not JUST the disability. A disability is just a medical diagnosis that people get when they fall under certain criteria, but that does not mean we can just call them just by that medical diagnosis. People with a disability are a person first and they come before the disability.
When you put someone’s disability first, it shows that you think that their disability is their defining factor. You may not intend that “autistic person” be a negative thing when you say it, but if you talk like this about all people with disabilities, it shows that you think of their disability before their personhood. Saying that someone is a person with autism is much better. People with disabilities are nice, intelligent, funny and most importantly, people that deserve respect. It’s important to change your language so you can start to show others that you put their personhood before any of their traits.
Here are some simple changes you can make to your dialogue. Instead of saying “disabled person,” say “person with disabilities.” Rather than “he’s down syndrome,” you can say “he has down syndrome.” Another one you can easily say is “children without disabilities” rather than “normal children.” This last one is extremely important. If you just label people with disabilities as abnormal or unhealthy, they will view themselves in a negative light just because they have a condition that might make them function a little different from what we are used to. That doesn’t make them not normal or unhealthy, though. Most people with disabilities are just about as healthy as someone without disabilities.
Now, I will be honest. This concept of person-first language was not very hard to grasp. I’m a cousin of someone who has cerebral palsy, and before I could even remember, I always thought of my cousin as someone who was way more than their cerebral palsy. It may be hard to change your language if you’ve been using it your entire life, and I understand. Everyone messes up at first, but the more you practice this type of language, the easier it will come to you, and your thinking of people with disabilities may actually change.