3 ms·
Nope, it is justified. People-first language is a subtle, but psychologically affecting issue. I.e. Saying "teenagers with Down syndrome" instead of "Down synd
by costcopizza 10y ago
Nope, it is justified. People-first language is a subtle, but psychologically affecting issue.
I.e. Saying "teenagers with Down syndrome" instead of "Down syndrome teenagers"
You have a disability, you aren't defined by it.
Source: Work for a nonprofit focused on serving kids and adults with various intellectual and developmental disabilities.
- mwcampbell 10y agoAs I participate in this thread and think more about this, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, saying "disabled" instead of "with a disability" carries the implication that the disability makes you completely unable to do anything useful, like a disabled widget in a UI toolkit. In our language, the best way to avoid that implication, when talking about disabilities in general, is to say "with a disability" rather than "disabled". But when talking about a specific disability, language like "people who are blind", instead of "blind people", is just too damn clunky, without accomplishing anything, at least in my mind. I know plenty of blind people, and none of us use people-first language to refer to ourselves or each other.
- costcopizza 10y agoInteresting that you mention blindness. The National Federation of the Blind first condemned people-first language in 1993. It really does depend on the group, however in my area of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) there is a push for it.