Introduction:
Choosing positive words can empower people. Inappropriate terms convey inaccurate information and harmful stereotypes. Here are four simple tips on how to write and speak affirmatively about people with disABILITIES.

1. Put the person first.
Each of us has a variety of characteristics — hair color, sex and height for example. For some people, a disABILITY is one of those characteristics. Regardless of our differences, however, we are all human. When writing and speaking about people with disABILITIES, emphasize the person and not the disABILITY. Use language that puts people first. "Our Senator is a person with epilepsy", "The supervisor is a woman with a spinal cord injury", "This building is accessible to people with disABILITIES".

2. No one is bound or confined to a wheelchair.
Wheelchairs are tools that enable people to move about. Some people with mobility impairments use a wheelchair at various times during the day, but no one stays in a wheelchair all day long. Some people transfer out of their wheelchair to use a toilet. All wheelchair users whether on their own or with help, transfer out of their chair and into bed at night. When writing or speaking about adaptive equipment used by people with disABILITIES, recognize its positive and liberating value.

3. People with disABILITIES are not automatically courageous.
It is tempting to believe that people with disABILITIES have a special talent to endure and to overcome; to bravely face their disABILITY. But people with disABILITIES are neither more nor less courageous than anyone else. When writing and speaking about people with disABILITIES, remember that every one of us have challenges in our lives. Describe people with disABILITIES as successful, productive or accomplished; but not as being gifted with special courage.

4. Avoid terms that devalue people with disABILITIES.
Some terms that have been used in the past are now considered hurtful and demeaning. Imagine how you would feel being described with these common but out-of-date words and phrases: crippled, suffers from, lame, afflicted with, and victim. When writing and speaking about people with disABILITIES, eliminate words that describe their lives as limited or pitiful. Avoid reducing people to cases and patients; instead of referring to an AIDS patient or a multiple sclerosis case, choose dignified phrases like a man living with AIDS and a woman with multiple sclerosis. Underlying all these suggestions is one basic notion; put the person first, using language that dignifies and affirms our common humanity.

Terminology

Writing and speaking about persons with disABILITIES:

The terms below are taken directly from the publication Word Choices: A lexicon of preferred terms for disability issues, published by the Ministry of Citizenship in 1993.

Four words to be avoided that make people with disabilities cringe when they are used: Afflicted, Suffer or Sufferer, Victim.

• Instead of autistics or the autistics; please us "person with autism or person that has autism".
• Instead of birth defect; please use "congenital disability", or be specific as in; "blind from birth, deaf from birth".
• Instead of blind; please use "a person with no vision" or "with almost no vision". People with some sight are "partially sighted, visually impaired or have low vision", not partially blind.
• Instead of brain-damaged; please use "brain-injured".
• Instead of confined to a wheelchair, or wheelchair bound; please use "person who uses a wheelchair". A wheelchair provides mobility for persons who cannot walk. It is not confining.
• Instead of crazy or insane; please use "mentally ill".
• Instead of crippled; please use "disabled", or be more specific as in "walks with crutches or leg braces"; or "uses a mobility aid".
• Instead of deaf and dumb or deaf mute; please use "deaf".
• Instead of epileptic; please use "person with epilepsy".
• Instead of fits or spells; please use "seizures".
• Instead of handicap; please use "person with a disability".
• Instead of he's handicapped; use "he has a disability".
• Instead of hearing impaired; please use "hard of hearing".
• Instead of lupus sufferer; please use "person with lupus".
• Instead of mongolism please use "down's syndrome".
• Instead of MS person; please use "person who has multiple sclerosis".
• Instead of normal; normal is not to be used as an opposite to disabled. Say "disabled and non-disabled; and able-bodied" or use more specific terms such as "sighted, or ambulatory".

Use patient only in a medical context or referring to a relationship with a medical practitioner; please use "people with disabilities" or whatever they have. A person with a disability is not automatically a patient. 

• Instead of physically challenged; please use "physically disabled".
• Instead of mentally retarded; please use "persons with developmental disabilities or developmentally disabled".
• Instead of stutterer; please use "person with speech impairment".
• Instead of the disabled; please use "persons with disabilities"; persons with disabilities do not want to be categorized as the disabled.
• Instead of the blind; please use "persons who are blind".
• Instead of the deaf; please use "persons who are deaf".
• Instead of the deaf-blind; please use "deaf-blind persons" (people who have varying combinations of visual and auditory impairments).