A philosophical disability question...

Yesterday my now 6 year old son Archie [who has the same disability as me] asked me if I was disabled when I was a baby? The question had me slightly stumped because of course I was born with my disability but as a baby was I strictly speaking a 'disabled baby'?

OK some of my milestones might have been later than 'normal' but whether that really affected my then quality of life or justified being stamped with the label 'DISABLED' at that point I wasn't quite sure?

When does disability per se kick in? Is it when you start slipping away a bit too far from the norm [medical model of disability]? Or is it as you are increasingly subjected to a world that isn't accessible to you [social model of disability]?

NB The Medical Model of Disability is where the person's disability is blamed for what they can't do and the solutions are mainly medical eg surgery, physiotherapy and the like. However many Disabled people prefer the Social Model of Disability which refers to the way that they are more 'disabled' by society - by a lack of access, poor attitudes and bureaucratic systems.

Take Archie - he is now significantly shorter than his peers but of course this only becomes an issue in an inaccessible enviroment.... His most obvious difference now as a 6 year old boy is that he is significantly less mobile than his peers which means he's increasingly likely to be left out of riotous playground games and perhaps this is the sort of thing that will make him feel disabled?

I think it's probably fair to say that his experience of being a disabled child is starting to kick in more now and the interesting bit of how to deal with that [positively] is yet to come, tips on a postcard please...

Mind your disability language!

Read an article yesterday, via the 'Isn't she talking yet?' blog - great name for a blog by India Knight who has a disabled child: http://timesonline.typepad.com/india_knight/

Anyway the article mentioned the word "harelip", it just leapt out at me from the page, I didn't really think people used it any more.... [the better term here if you are wondering is "cleft lip"] and I just thought, in case anyone was remotely interested I'd put a few pointers re the right language to use when it comes to talking/writing about disability:

'The disabled', 'The blind', 'The deaf' lumps people together, much better to use: 'Disabled people', 'blind/visually impaired people', 'deaf people'

NB Some people don't mind the term 'people with Disabilities', I prefer the more political term Disabled people - which refers to the way Disabled people are disabled by society more than anything else... that's the basis of the Medical vs Social Model of Disability argument, more on that another time!

'Able bodied' makes people sound super wonderful and able, better to say 'Non disabled'

The term 'Mentally handicapped' or heaven forbid 'retard' went out with the horse and cart, use 'people with learning difficulties/disabilities'

A better term than 'Mentally ill' is 'people with mental health problems'

Don't say 'Dwarf', say 'short statured person', 'short person', 'person with restricted growth'; personally I find "little person" too American/naff and 'vertically challenged' is just laughable

'Wheelchair bound' and 'confined to a wheelchair' are just plainly ridiculous because no one is bound/confined to a wheelchair [unless they are into S&M], the vast majority of wheelchair users see their wheelchair as something that liberates them and prefer to be called a 'wheelchair user'

The BBC OUCH! worst word poll http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/yourspace/worstwords/ found the word 'special' is right up there amongst the worst words to use when referring to disability, use 'segregated' [when talking about schools] or 'different' [when talking about needs]

Similarly most disabled people hate to be described as courageous, heroic,
inspiring, brave, just don't use them

Finally, 'Victim of', 'suffering from' makes big assumptions, better to say 'a person with/who has…' and fill in the disability/condition.