05 October, 2011

person with disabilities

DISCUSS: the phrase “person with disabilities” instead of “person with a disability.” sometimes I see this used, like, “a person with intellectual disabilities”—wait, really? how many intellectual disabilities can one person have?

I don’t know if this is just a style thing that doesn’t actually make sense, saying disabilities plural when the person doesn’t actually have multiple disabilities. but I am kind of into it because actually one person can have a lot of intellectual disabilities, or a lot of fibros or depressions or whatever. I would almost prefer to say I have disabilities instead of saying I have a disability because it’s not like it only does one thing.

what do you think?

1 comment:

  1. I don't ever say I have disability/disabilities, because that feels disingenuous and it's part of attaching the disability to me instead of integrating it as just a part of me, but yeah I think disabilities is better, because there's also that whole idea of one-difference-allowed, and multiply disabled people get disbelieved. It's kind of really irritating how many people think a disability means ONE impairment in ONE place.

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