Permalink Submitted by Linda Christensen (not verified) on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 14:24
I worked in the field of special education for many years. We changed our vocabulary some years ago from "He is disabled" to "He has disabilities", because "disabilities" is not all that a person is about. A person may have disabilites, but they have so many other things that define who they are. The line that made me a believer was "If a person has cancer, you wouldn't call them a cancerous person". You would just say they had cancer.
Terminology
I worked in the field of special education for many years. We changed our vocabulary some years ago from "He is disabled" to "He has disabilities", because "disabilities" is not all that a person is about. A person may have disabilites, but they have so many other things that define who they are. The line that made me a believer was "If a person has cancer, you wouldn't call them a cancerous person". You would just say they had cancer.