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Language influences perceptions and behavior. Words in popular use mirror prevailing attitudes in society. Oftentimes, societal attitudes create barriers for people with disabilities. Through language usage, we can conjure up images of people actively engaged in life, and we can avoid stereotypical phrases that suggest helplessness or tragedy. When you refer to a "disabled woman," your listener or reader has already begun to form some kind of image of "disabled" before she/he hears the word "woman." The subject of the sentence then hasn't a chance to be thought of as a regular person. She will be considered mainly disabled and secondarily a woman until or unless your subsequent language jars this image loose. On the other hand, if you refer to her as a "woman with a disability" the reverse tends to occur. Your audience first starts forming an image of an ordinary woman, and then modifies it. The focus becomes on the individual, not the particular functional limitation. Once you've identified her as having a disability, and the most adaptive image you can conjure up for her is pretty much set in your reader or listener's mind, there is no reason not to use the briefer expression "disabled woman" from time to time if you feel the need for literary variety. One common way of sensationalizing disability is to describe highly successful people with disabilities as "superhuman." Such individuals are shown as being "incredible" or "extraordinary" because they strive to overcome their limitations and serve as role models or yardsticks for measuring personal achievement. While people with disabilities have had to overcome obstacles dealing with their disability, they generally have the same range of talents and dispositions as non-disabled individuals. Portraying persons with disabilities as "superstars" creates unfair expectations. Another common way of sensationalizing is to use the language of tragedy or catastrophe. Words and phrases like "afflicted with," "struck by," "a victim of," or "crippled with" disability generate sentimental feelings of pity, which can be socially damaging to the person described. It also leaves the reader or listener with the nebulous impression that individuals with disabilities face serious problems with which they cannot cope. If you get stuck on a person's disability, your listener or reader will get stuck there too. Usually, other aspects of the person are more interesting or relevant to the issue at hand. This is equally true regarding race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation. If such demographics seem worth mentioning, then mention them. This can be done without making them the focus of the described individual's being. It is generally useful to avoid verbs that imply that disability encapsulates all there is to say about a person. Also, it is useful to avoid verbs that suggest images of passivity. For example, the phrase "so-and-so is in a wheelchair" conjures a passive image, someone just sitting there doing nothing. By contrast, the phrase "so-and-so uses a wheelchair" tends to elicit an action image, someone wheeling a chair or operating a control device. The first person seems helpless and detached; the second, participatory and involved. Most people who have been hospitalized even briefly understand how disconcerting it is to be known temporarily as "the heart in room 18" or "the liver in room 24." It doesn't take much imagination to understand how annoying it would be to hear yourself referred to as a "spinal cord injury" or a "manic depressive" for the rest of your life. It's no harder to say, "Charlie has a spinal cord injury" or "manic-depressive illness" than it is to say, "Charlie is a spinal cord injury" or "manic depressive." The first suggests that disability is just one trait among many. The second implies that it summarizes the essence of all that Charlie is. In summary, in the most wholesome, socially appealing image, the person is doing something. In the second best, one is seen as a person who has a disability. In the least helpful social image, one's very being is identified by disability--other facets of personality disappear, leaving only embodied disablement. Disability-Disease Distinction Some disabilities are progressive results of chronic conditions, but many, probably most, are not. The illness/injury that caused the disability is an event of the past. A person with a substantial disability may be healthier than you are. This distinction can be very important in such situations as a job search, acquiring health insurance, and getting a date. A person with a severe disability doesn't need the unwarranted obstacle of being seen as also having an active disease. Injury-caused disabilities are easy to distinguish from disease-caused disabilities once you know they result from injuries. Disease-caused disabilities pose more problems because most people don't know which diagnostic labels reflect acute illnesses that are long past and which designate continuing illnesses. To err on the safe side, assume "stable disability, no disease" unless the person corrects you. Euphemisms claimed as politically correct by various splinter groups (e.g., "impaired," "physically challenged," and "differently abled") have generated endless jokes and parodies, which may not be what their promoters wanted. Suffice it to say, these are fad phrases that have not gained general acceptance among people with disabilities. Of the main non-euphemistic terms, "disability" has come to be preferred over "handicap" as the more general descriptor. This is owing to the latter's narrower meaning as well as its historical association with fundraising pathos. The word "disability" refers to the functional limitation a person experiences as a result of an impairment. The word "handicap" refers to the social consequences of the disability. For example, stairs, narrow doorways, and curbs are handicaps to people with disabilities who use wheelchairs.
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