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1st Trimester
Cheerilee
member
Quick soapbox but I promise it's not out of meanness!
Cheerilee
member
This is NOT a flame, just information. I promise. I'm actually more easy-going while pregnant, it seems. Someone in another post said "special needs child" and I just thought I'd jump on a quick soap box.
You say "a child with special needs" or "a child with a disability" rather than a "special needs child." It's called People First Language. I hate when people refer to my stepson as "Autistic". They say "he's autistic" or "the autistic student" and it grates every fiber in my body. He IS many other things. He IS sweet, caring, loving, affectionate, well-behaved, funny, adorable... He is NOT autistic. Autism is not an adjective. It's a diagnosis. My SS HAS autism. A learning disability is also a diagnosis - so not an adjective ("My brother's learning disabled" vs. "My brother has a learning disability"). No one says someone IS cancer, or cancer-istic. They say they HAVE cancer and ARE people.
OK, off the soap box 
"To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Quick soapbox but I promise it's not out of meanness!
Well-stated! Great day to do it too--Jan. 20th is the Day of Acceptance.
www.dayofacceptance.com
ETA: Not sure how to make it clicky!!
I was not aware today was the Day of Acceptance! That's awesome
And thanks for letting me know I didn't come across as mean, but rather informative. Sometimes, text is hard to get the right emotion into.
No one uses People First Language perfectly. I don't and it means a lot to me. My husband is actually better at it than I and I've TAUGHT the concept in staff development workshops and lived it my whole life! It just hurts his feelings when people talk about our (my SS, his BioS) son in the wrong context. It's just a great thing to know and try to do better
That's a perfect example. Sadly, I'm bad at using the correct language within mental illness, specifically OCD. That's something I've had to strive to do better. When I moved my focus from working with students on academics to working on behavior issues, I had to mesh more with mental health professionals. That was a difficult barrier to cross because SO many people say "she's schizophrenic" or "she's OCD" or simply "she's crazy" and I had to really listen and learn the right way to say things.
If TB had a like button I would push it now. This drives me insane was well. Well said!
Thanks for posting. I totally agree that more people should be aware of this. I work with children on a daily basis, and this is an issue that bothers me as well. Most people speak that way without thinking about it because it's what they've always heard. Making people aware of what it implies, that a person is defined by their challenges or disabilities, is really important in helping people change their thought and speech pattern.
And it's a great thing to start with educating children! They're more flexible than adults.
Your wording in no way hurt me. I've seen it phrased that way a lot on TB and took the opportunity to say something after I saw it stated again. Maybe I was in a "mood"
Something like this isn't flame-worthy because it's not meant in malice. Now... the DDed post that brought this all up - apparently that WOULD have been flamed and perhaps my not-nice side would have come out, then 
And that's awesome your family is so involved! I've spent a lot of my educational career in the field of autism. Only after I had been in school (for a long time) and working with kids on the spectrum did I meet DH and his son. It really was just a perfect fit. It has also given me a completely new look into the world of autism. It's made me a better professional as his mother.
P.S. I'd use the real Smileys, but Mac does not like to open the Smiley box.
I have such a hard time remembering to do that.
Also, it's making me think of my son. In the cranio support group I was in we referred to our LO's as Cranio Babies when I guess we shouldn't actually refer to the babies/kids like that... Definitely interesting to think about...
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This! Very, very good to know.
I'm Deaf. I'm not hypersensitive about what people call my disability or how they identify me. I actually have a cochlear implant and can pass for hearing, but I'm still Deaf and it doesn't bother me in the least. I was that special needs child and I am a special needs adult.
By the way, I'm white. Or should I be a woman with white skin. Furthermore, a person with female genitalia.
We can go on and on...
I think it's really great that you are flexible when it comes to the wording people use. It's nice when people have a thick skin and are willing to hear people's intention as opposed to just basing things off the words they used. I might be showing some ignorance here, so feel free to correct me if I'm incorrect. I don't feel like people truly define someone who is deaf as "a deaf person". In their mind, when they say, "a deaf person" the really mean "someone who is deaf". They do not attach a lower value to you, or think of you as less of a contributor to society because of your disability. I know that it hasn't always been that way, and that it took a lot of effort to get to the point where that is true. (And as I said, I might be showing my ignorance. Maybe I'm wrong and that you have a different experience.)
However, for someone who has autism or who has down syndrome or other severe disabilities, there are people who completely define those children (and adults) by that disability, making assumptions about who they are based on the fact that they are disabled. It makes sense, then, that someone who is very close to some one with a severe disability (or those people themselves) would be more sensitive to the use of language that suggested that their loved one is less valuable, or defined by their limitations. Beyond that, I think words are important, and we should try to say what we mean... not what everyone else typically says.
This is what I should have said with my post...
We categorize people and it is ok. These categories are created b/c of distinct similarities and characteristics. Deaf, Blind, Autistic, Jewish, Catholic, Irish, Japanese, Male, Female, Gay, Straight, Liberal, Conservative, Team Blue, Team Pink, Team Green, etc... Many of these categories have had a negative stigma/stereotype, but that has changed over time or is still changing.
We don't change the category or stop grouping people together. They are always going to be there. We change the stigma and how we feel about it. The way we do this is by getting to know individuals.
Within my current program, I work with people in deaf/hard of hearing. They have stated that within the Deaf community People First Language is different. Some people want to be referred to someone with a hearing impairment. Some people want to be referred to as Deaf. I don't work with that population so I've never really had the experience to develop the correct knowledge on the subject.
Yes, some people are OK defining themselves by their disability. Temple Grandin refers to herself as Autistic. When I last saw her speak, she said something along the lines of "Yes, I'm Autistic. It HAS defined who I am and it HAS gotten me to where I am. If I wasn't Autistic, I wouldn't be standing her right now." She talked about how she used Autistic in the same way the Deaf community uses Deaf... big A Autistic, big D Deaf. She also supported People First Language in the sense that people FORCE that label, as an adjective, as others. They don't have a choice. My son does not speak so he cannot "define himself" in a way we can understand. He's 100% in general education classes. We don't want his teachers and peers calling him 'autistic' so we will not call him such.
We DO let religion, race, political stances define us because they kind of do. They do shape our personalities and our beliefs. Does having a disability shape someone's belief system in the same way as religion? I don't think so. It doesn't with my son, it didn't with my brother, and I never let it with my students. If you've met one kid with autism... you've met one kid with autism. And NOT all kids with Down's Syndrome are the same. NO way! Their personalities are all different. Everybody says "they're stubborn." Not really. Some are. Some aren't. Some teenagers are stubborn, some aren't. Some husbands are stubborn, some aren't. Down's is a perfect example of how using the disability as an adjective has defined the population. Think of the stigmas. Now go hang out with a group of kids with Down's Syndrome and see how the stigmas are not correct with every kid.
I didn't teach certain students certain ways because of their disability 'label'. If they struggled academically, socially, behaviorally, etc I taught those areas. A student with a learning disability doesn't have social deficits as a part of his "definition". I still taught social skills because they needed it. Their disability didn't define them. Their needs did. Their personality did.
As a human race, we'll never going to change the stigmas without changing the language. Ever. Did you know we no longer diagnose 'mental retardation' in the schools? It's now an 'intellectual disability'. Why? Because we (as people) easily threw around 'retarded' as an adjective. "Dude, that's retarded." "Don't be retarded." "My in-laws are retarded." Rather than CONTINUING to educate people as we have over and over, we had to change the diagnosis. I say get to know the individuals and leave the disability out of it. Completely. Don't use the disability as an adjective when referring to others. You don't know that it is what THEY want.