ralph Szur | Jan 26, 2007

In using person first language , you decrease the tendency to objectify people and treat them in a stereotypic fashion.

All people have potential to make a valued contribution. The disability label "blinds" us from that potential.
Some people feel that disability is a natural condition or part of the human spectrum. Indeed, there is an advocay group that uses this concept as the name of their group.

Rosie | Jan 31, 2007

I believe that the way language is used matters. We should always recognize the person first before anything else to identify them. If we look at current events we see how using the "n" word has historically been used in a derragotory form to identify someone by their color, (although in some young people use it in friendlier terms) not the person that they are. I personally do not like the word mentally retarded or sometimes mentally challenged I have a difficult time using it on my son and on other wonderful people I have met. They are individuals and should be respected as that. They are different yes, but they are individuals and we should reflect that in our language by identifying them as a person not by their ability or lack there of. Words can be hurtful and we can never take them back once they are uttered. It is a pain that never goes away and lives within people for years. As a society we have to be more conscientious of how and what we say. My son is my son, not my mentally retarded son. We should be pioneers in the movement to use "person first" language as we know first hand how hurtful these word can be.

Mohan | Feb 21, 2007

Language matters. Words can make one feel good or cause deep hurt. Nobody wants to use the term mental retardation to describe people. Not parents of children and adults with mental retardation, and certainly not people with the disability. In the last five years, this term has fallen out of favor, and I predict, that in the next five, it will be minimally used. American Association of Mental Retardation has changed its name. The Arc of the U.S. does not use the tern, and last year, NYSARC voted to drop the term to describe the people we serve.
Let's hope that NYS OMRDD will follow soon. I hope that ten years from now, we will need no term to describe people with disabilities. They are people first , like everyone.

Laura Anderson | Mar 11, 2007

Language is the key to unlock the human mind. By removing the "mental retardation" label which only puts people in a box and using the "people first" language, a new person can emerge. Thus, the full potential of the valued individual has room to expand and develop and be known.

ralph szur | Mar 16, 2007

Wow Patsy and Lois are right on about long term care. Their crossroads is the one faced by many of us baby boomers. Thanks for the exposure via the web, it would be a fertile field for exploration by all of us.

At the family resource day a mother approached me and asked about residential living for her daughter who was about 50. I launched into a series of questionas for clarification so that I could tell her about resources and systems that I was aware of. But I was taken slightly aback when she said she was looking for assisted living for her. Not the traditional 3-6 person group home but a generic assitive living arrangement.So she brougth a new perspective to bear on my thinking.

ralph szur | Mar 16, 2007

I just viewed the article about "Larry C." on the web site and I must speak out. I feel that by not using consumers lasts name we perpetuate the patriarcal demeaning of the people we are trying to treat with dignity and respect as fellow members of the society we live in . The pratice is disempowering . If a person without a disability, the so called "temporarily abeled" ,or someone "different" can give permission to use their name in an article why not give them the credit that they deserve?

Anonymous | Mar 18, 2007

It's not the actual WORD that causses harm, hate or a deragatory nature. A person can retard the rate of rot on a piece of fruit by keeping it in a cool, dry place. The word itself is NOT negative. It's not an insult. I find more fault in the whole term 'mentally retarded' as a sort of blanket where the word "mentally" tends to evoke the conpcet of completely, wholely, entirely. It the use of a word that promotes non-individualistic thinking. Using the term 'mentally' causes it to act as an all encompassing descriptor of a person. That is incorrect and more unfair and derogatory than the word we choose to focus on as negative (retarded), when it's most basic definition simply means to slow down, YET the word mentally is used to to provide a description that encompasses a persons entire being. Mentally is more judgemental and predjudice than retard.

Sharan DePalma | May 2, 2007

"People first" is always the best way to go. I agree that the stigma of labels can alter the view of the person with the disability. A word of caution, however, to those of us in the special needs community... We cannot get hung up on labels, but we can gently remind others how their words are perceived. I have been guilty of saying "my autistic child" rather than "my son with autism", but never once thought of him differently. Sometimes we're just trying to get through the day. It can sometimes be exhaustion, not mal-intent, that precipitates the terminology.

Anonymous | Jul 18, 2007

I have a learning disability and wish that people felt more free to address me as a learning disabled person if we are on the topic. I know that even though my disability is part of who I am, I am not defined by it. I don't discuss my disability often, and people can use person-first language if they so choose. I agree that it is usually best. However, I have a problem with the words 'all' and 'always' as they are used by proponents of person-first. Although my disablity is mild, I am as much a member of the disability culture as a person with a more more noticible disability. I don't like when proponents say something like, "All of us should always use person first." This suggests that there is no room for personal dissent. Proponents need to consider their wide audience (human beings who do or do not have disabilities).

Andrew J. Heugel | Aug 12, 2007

Much has been said about using the MR word. What about the other words we use in our service plans and progress notes? When I worked for Search for Change (an agency that serves people diagnosed w/ mental illness) I was told that I couldn't use such words as prompt, inappropriate and redirect. These are only three of about a dozen words we were told that we couldn't use. Can you guess why?

Kate Gladstone | Dec 23, 2007

By requiring a person with ____ phrases, any discussion of disabilities bans literally thousands of the successful, concerned, and disabled adult disabilities advocates/self-advocates (such as me) who find a person-with a-speak coldly dehumanizing, clinical, and therefore highly offensive

Imagine how you'd feel if a meeting on women's rights required calling women people with femaleness or if you tried to have a friendly discussion about (say) religious faith with someone who insisted on calling you "a person with Christianity" (or "a person with Judaism" or whatever).

To see this said better than I know how to say it, Google-search the autistic activist Jim Sinclair and his on-line essay "Why I Dislike Person-First Language."

I look forward to your comments on his position: the position I share.

http://web.syr.edu/~jisincla/index.html
(if this URL breaks in posting, copy and paste it all.)