(No trick questions… just real-world moments.)
How’d you do?
If any of these made you pause (or rethink a phrase you’ve used), you’re exactly where you should be. Find the correct answers and more on disability language in this TravelAbility Playbook snippet.
COMMUNICATION GUIDANCE
Part of what makes communicating challenging is that people with disabilities are not a homogenous group. A good practice is to ask how someone prefers to describe themselves and, if you inadvertently offend someone with your language, apologize and ask them to share with you their preferred language. There are generally two ways to approach this: person-first or identity-first. Neither is right or wrong; we should simply honor an individual’s preference.
Person-first language: Person-first language emphasizes the person first — their individuality, their complexity, their humanness and their equality.
Example: “A person with a disability” Identity-first language: Identity-first language emphasizes that the disability plays a role in who the person is and reinforces disability as a positive cultural identifier.
Example: “Disabled person”
| TIPS | USE | DO NOT USE |
| Emphasize abilities, not limitations | Person who uses a wheelchair | Confined or restricted to a wheelchair, wheelchair bound |
| Person who uses a device to speak | Can’t talk, mute | |
| Do not use language that suggests the lack of something | Person with a disability | Disabled, handicapped |
| Person of short stature | Midget | |
| Person with cerebral palsy | Cerebral palsy victim | |
| Person with epilepsy or seizure disorder | Epileptic | |
| Person with multiple sclerosis | Afflicted by multiple sclerosis | |
| Emphasize the need for accessibility, not the disability | Accessible parking or bathroom | Handicapped parking or bathroom |
| Do not use offensive language | Person with a physical disability | Crippled, lame, deformed, invalid, spastic |
| Person with an intellectual, cognitive, developmental disability | Slow, simple, moronic, defective, afflicted, special person | |
| Person with and emotional or behavioral disability, a mental health impairment, or a psychiatric disability | Insane, crazy, psycho, maniac, nuts | |
Avoid language that implies negative stereotypes | Person without a disability | Normal person, healthy person |
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