Does anyone else feel the same about the term 'disabled person'? — Scope | Disability forum
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Does anyone else feel the same about the term 'disabled person'?

niceboots
niceboots Scope Member Posts: 198 Pioneering
I'm sorry if this comes across as me having a chip on my shoulder but.... the term 'disabled person' drives me mad.... I think the term person with a disability should be used instead.
I'm a person first and foremost I just happen to have a condition that affects they way my brain and body communicates, which is seen as a disability... Even though I know no different... late night rant over!!! 
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Comments

  • Justice
    Justice Community member Posts: 197 Pioneering
    I don't have a disablity, but my Husband does. I would agree with you 100%
  • Justice
    Justice Community member Posts: 197 Pioneering
    @niceboots. While we are at it, I also don't like the term " Benefits" If someone has a disability later in life the chances are they have worked for many years, and paid into the system. If they are unfortunate to have been ill or have a disability all of their lives then the probability is their families will have contributed. For goodness sake, even the State Pension is classed as a benfit.

    What really takes the biscuit for me though is that when My Husband became ill, and he was self employed prior to that, we had an insurance against something like that happening, paid a lot of money each month for the insurance, so in essence we bought it. They have to gall to call that benefits too.

    That is my rant over too 
    t
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 740 Listener
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  • Ariel
    Ariel Community member Posts: 16 Courageous
    "Disabled person" sits much more comfortably with me. Just as I am an "autistic person" not a "person with autism".
  • laila
    laila Community member Posts: 48 Connected
    I think that the word diability is wrongly chosen because we re poeple who manage to do many things. I think it should be replaced with: people with special abilities. Because we develop special abilities to fit in this life.
  • Zeezee
    Zeezee Community member Posts: 78 Pioneering
    Hi my daughter has quad cp and although this effects her quite severely in a physical way, her intelligence is off the scale for her age. She is also fiercely stubborn if you tell her that she can't do something, she will do everything possible to prove you wrong. With this in mind I do not think that she is disabled, I prefer to say she is 'differently abled' because her abilities are just different from the 'norm'. I think that the term disabled instantly gives the impression that the person is somehow 'less than' everyone else. The first thing people say when told that a person is 'disabled' is "what is wrong with them".  Well there is nothing wrong with my daughter, her legs don't work properly, but hey, watch her swim better than other three year olds, she can't sit up unaided, but how many three year olds can read words like 'uniform, sausage, started, victory and hundreds of other words'. She can't do lots of things physically that other three year olds can do, BUT her favourite saying is " I can find a way". Therefore I don't think that she is dis-abled because she can do so many things so much better than her peers and her strength of character is a constant inspiration to me so I prefer to say that she is differently abled.
  • Matilda
    Matilda Community member Posts: 2,593 Disability Gamechanger
    Labels change over the years.  This is going off the subject but related.  On census forms 100 plus years old there was no occupational category of 'retired'. Where an older person was no longer working the occupation box was left blank.

    Back then many people had no choice but to work till they dropped as there were no State pensions until 1911. And then most died before reaching pension age.

    Many these days might not like the term 'benefits' but at least we've got them instead of the workhouse.

    Of course the government are doing their best to withdraw benefits. Are food banks the thin end of the wedge?
  • Markmywords
    Markmywords Community member Posts: 419 Pioneering
    "What's in a name? that which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet;"

    This has come up before. It's not the label that matters but what people do with it.

    Change the label and eventually people will use the new one as a pejorative. :/

    Besides, it's not a label that keeps me mostly housebound.
  • Justice
    Justice Community member Posts: 197 Pioneering
    @Zeezee. I love the sound of " Differently Abled" :smile:
  • alggomas
    alggomas Community member Posts: 5 Listener
    I think this is up to the individual. I have no qualms about calling me disabled as I am. It is just a name for someone who cannot do some normal things because of physical impairment. My family friends and many other people do not call me disabled. Only my birth name.
    It may be HOW people say it.
    Also other words have been sanatised e.g, dustmen. What's wrong with that?
  • Sam_Alumni
    Sam_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,671 Disability Gamechanger
    It is definitely a personal thing, Scope uses the term disabled person because we use the social model of disability.  The social model of disability says that disability is caused by the way society is organised, rather than by a person’s impairment or difference. It looks at ways of removing barriers that restrict life choices for disabled people. When barriers are removed, disabled people can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives.
    Scope
    Senior online community officer
  • forgoodnesssake
    forgoodnesssake Community member Posts: 500 Pioneering
    edited June 2017
    It's an interesting one and I have heard many sides of the argument for and against particular phrases.  I am not disabled but my son has athetoid CP and so I know quite a lot of other disabled adults and children.  I know that there is a view that it should be "see the person" ie put the person bit in before the disability, so "person with a disability".  However, as has been pointed out to me and I can see in the "social model"...the person has an impairment which may or may not disable them depending on how society works to minimise the effects of that impairment.  So I do say that my son "is disabled"...because things outwith his control and his impairment are often what disable him; certainly in the built environment and with regard to other people's attitudes and behaviours (if they changed my son would be less disabled).
    However he also uses a communication aid, and there is more of a move to put person first in describing a person who uses a communication aid...so you get PWUAAC..it is being used more and more, rather than "communication aid user" or "AAC user"
  • basiclee08
    basiclee08 Community member Posts: 66 Courageous
    after my accident I hated the being called Disabled, took me along time to come to terms with not being able to get up and go anywhere without planning and worrying about access, all that wasted energy and time, i suppose we who are not born with a disability go  thru this. took me  a long time to come to terms with who i am and my abilities now.  The term or word Disabled is not the problem its us,  societies  Issue. that in this day and age Sadly we are Far from Equality and full access as our counter parts The able bodied. Over the last seven years it as not Helped our Cause Being Named as scroungers and so on by our own Government. 
  • Roland
    Roland Community member Posts: 27 Courageous
    I am not defined by my disability.  I am a person living with, not suffering from or dying from. I define my disability.  And I choose how to define it.
  • connormorris
    connormorris Community member Posts: 1 Listener
    I personally hate that label- People often ask me what its like to "suffer from MS" and I don't answer them, I might have MS, but MS will never have me; it doesn't define me, it hasn't changed my personality, so why would i be a disabled person?
  • Topkitten
    Topkitten Community member Posts: 1,285 Pioneering
    It doesn't really matter how we are referred to, there will always be people who use it as a derogatory term. The rules are set by the majority and those are healthy. Most of them have no idea what classes as a 'disabled person', nor are they particularly interested to find out. They will always overlook us in some fashion, maybe because they only understand what they see on TV or maybe because they are embarrassed about having to refer to us.

    When I have to use a wheelchair I get odd looks when they think I am not observing them as much as to say "Why didn't he get the cure, is he too stupid to understand it?". Then they may or may not talk to anyone healthy with me talking right over my head, assuming I will not understand. I often shame them by holding intelligent conversation (my IQ is above average) with them and others around me.

    TK
    "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" - from Wrong side of heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.
  • Dasiydo
    Dasiydo Community member Posts: 93 Courageous
    Well I am got Dyspraxia but college said learn difficult but I disagreed with at as can't go downstairs or hills but also where hear aid say half deaf in disability I keep no secret how feel disability I live with everyday even someday are hard then others
    V.shaw
  • Amz
    Amz Community member Posts: 1 Listener
    I don't like the term 'disabled person' as I feel its making your condition or health problem define who you are. Like I'm not saying your illness or condition isn't important of course it is but don't let it define you. You are able to do things in your own way and in your own time. My brother has Cerebral Palsy and he is in a wheel chair because of it. I told him about me having Palindromic Rheumatism and Hypermobility which effects my mobility sometimes. He signed to me "Where is your wheel chair"?. I explained not all illnesses are visible and not everyone needs a wheel chair. He smiled and gave me a hug as this was the first time I told him properly about my health. Even on forms it asks 'Do you see yourself having a disability". This question is so hard for me to answer as I want to write No, but I guess I feel in denial as I refuse to Give up . Its been since 2014 I was diagnosed and when I did it was almost like grief...Like apart of me was lost..Any one else had this feeling?  Like something inside was missing. Also I was relied as I knew I didn't have pain for all theses years since little for no reason.
    Hope everyone is well.
    Please no hate comments, If you don't agree with what I have wrote this is fine because everyone has there own opinions .




  • Dasiydo
    Dasiydo Community member Posts: 93 Courageous
    I have different promble with bus pass As with hear aid and Dyspraxia " You not disabled you not over 65 years old why got bus pass?"those who get blues badge for your car do have same problem?
    V.shaw

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