Labels Are Less Important Than Attitudes
People-first language stipulates that a mentally slow child is no longer retarded but a child with a developmental disability, a cripple is a person with a physical disability, a Mongoloid is a person with Down syndrome and a blind person is one with impaired sight. These cumbersome, tongue-tripping phrases have done little to change our preconceptions and have failed to tackle the real issue of acceptance and assimilation.
Since 1990, most professionals have followed the example set by the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. Acronyms are inevitable. “Developmentally disabled” is a clumsy phrase and is quickly shortened to “DD” in discussions and written reports. It also wraps awkwardly around the tongue of any person with a speech impediment. I asked my 37-year-old son who has Down syndrome to say the words. He couldn’t. He said simply and proudly, “I’m Downs,” oblivious of the statement made by the Down Syndrome Congress that “a person with Down syndrome should not be referred to as ‘Downs.’ ”
Until the second half of this century, society hid nature’s aberrations behind the walls of asylums, treating them as subspecies incapable of leading useful lives. Based on IQ, the mentally deficient were divided into idiots, imbeciles and morons, names that carry a cruel stigma. Idiots are now called totally dependent or severely developmentally disabled. Imbeciles became the trainable mentally handicapped children of the 1960s, the moderately retarded of the 1980s are now students who are moderately developmentally disabled. Morons (from the Greek word for fool) were placed in the educable mentally handicapped classes of the 1960s and 1970s and are now described as persons who are semi-independent developmentally disabled.
We have become lulled into a sense of righteousness by a jumble of new names that we believe give dignity to the disabled. Less fear is conjured up by the term physically handicapped than by cripple, by developmentally disabled than mentally retarded, by Down syndrome than Mongolian idiot. But there is a danger in glossing over reality with elaborate nomenclature. Do we really expect people with impaired sight and hearing to refer to themselves as anything but blind and deaf? Moreover, tiptoeing around any sensitive issue won’t make it go away. Has the new terminology helped the disabled become assimilated into everyday life? A fancy name doesn’t alter a person’s handicap, but has it changed our perception of that handicap? Are we less likely to avoid eye contact with a twisted body in a wheelchair because we now call him or her disabled rather than crippled? Are we less likely to cross the street to avoid a group of awkward-looking adults because we call them developmentally disabled rather than retards? Is an employer more willing to accept an applicant whose disability has a new name?
Our over-emphasis on doing away with terms such as retarded is mirrored by our insistence on including all children with disabilities in regular classes. Although the letterhead of the Lambs Farm in Illinois describes the organization as “a national center dedicated to the well-being of persons with mental disabilities,” its mission statement retains the word “retarded.” According to Tim Unsworth in his book “The Lambs of Libertyville,” cofounder Bob Terese says, “Our special people must know who they are, their condition cannot be masked with language. Once people accept this fact, progress can be made.”
We should not be misled into believing that polite epithets have wiped out our prejudices. Whether we call the mentally and physically handicapped persons with developmental disabilities or simply retarded, disabled, blind or deaf, we still need to learn to treat all persons with differences as equal human beings.