Curious About What to Say to a Person with a Disability? Here Are 5 Things to Say And 5 Things Not to Say

How do you feel when you spot a person with a disability? If you’re like most, you probably feel a complex rush of emotions. Out of compassion, you want to understand the person’s life and what it’s like to live without sight, hearing or full mobility. But out of ignorance or even fear, you rarely broach the awkward silence. To open the conversation with the 56.7 million Americans living with a disability, pull up a chair, look the person in the eye and read on to find out what the experts recommend saying and what’s better left unspoken.

What to Say

1. “Hey, did you see that movie?”

Some people avoid engaging in conversation with a person with a disability because they worry there’s just too many pitfalls. What if I accidentally ask a blind person if they see what I mean? What if I ask someone hard of hearing if they heard the latest news? While people who use one of these colloquialisms likely kick themselves as soon as the words leave their mouth, the person with a disability might not even notice. “Typically, an individual who is comfortable with his or her own disability is not offended by such phrases. I often say them myself, as it is just part of our vernacular,” says Anthony Stephens, director of advocacy and governmental affairs for the American Council of the Blind. Of course, there are exceptions, such as someone who has recently lost her sight or hearing might be sensitive. But above all, people with disabilities want to be treated like anyone else. Relax when you’re speaking, and generally don’t worry about this metaphorical language.

2. “Can I ask you what medical condition you have?”

A person’s disability is caused by a medical condition. That’s a reality most won’t shy away from and one that can guide your interaction. (Upon seeing someone in a wheelchair, many people wrongly assume that the person is totally incapacitated, and they start speaking slower or louder — despite a lack of evidence that the person’s hard of hearing or has cognitive disabilities.) After you’ve spoken about the medical condition, don’t ask for more information about daily challenges. Why? Not only could it seem like you’re prying, but also because many in the community believe that disabilities stem from society’s inability to adapt, rather than from any physical limitation. “It’s not that I can’t open the door,” says Ian Watlington, an advocacy specialist at the National Disability Rights Network who has cerebral palsy, “it’s that the door is too heavy.” Don’t press further, unless you know the person well or he volunteers information, or otherwise you’ll reduce his life to “a set of symptoms,” Watlington adds.

3. “Would it be helpful if I carried this over for you?”

Grabbing a blind person’s arm may throw them off balance. Lifting someone’s wheelchair by the handles could tip them onto the floor. It may be hard to resist when it looks like a person with a disability is struggling, but jumping into someone’s personal space is a big no-no. They already developed a different — but no less effective — way of navigating the world. Always ask if your help is needed first, and don’t take offense if someone declines it. “We know when to ask for help. Just wait for us to speak up,” suggests Tiffiny Carlson, a Minnesota blogger whose spinal cord was injured in a driving accident as a teen. “How would you like it if someone barrel-rolled themselves into your personal space? You wouldn’t. The same goes for us.”

4. “Our building is accessible to all.”

At its most fundamental level, having a disability can make it physically challenging to get around. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a massive civil rights bill passed in 1990, prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities in employment, access to public services, telecommunications and housing and other accommodations. The bill was the culmination of a decades-long campaign, which sought to show that people with disabilities could live independently as part of a community. “Like the African-Americans who sat in at segregated lunch counters and refused to move to the back of the bus, people with disabilities sat in federal buildings, obstructed the movement of inaccessible buses, and marched through the streets to protest injustice,” Arlene Mayerson, directing attorney of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, writes in a history of the movement. ADA compliance is now widespread, but it’s always reassuring for a person with disabilities to feel welcomed (keep ramps unobstructed, trash bins out of aisles and display boards away from entrances), rather than being seen as a burden.

5. “You’re hired!”

While the ADA is responsible for revamped layouts of many workspaces, it hasn’t been nearly as effective at adding diversity to employment rosters. According to the 2010 Census, only 41 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities were employed, compared with 79 percent with no disability. Thanks to today’s technology, people with disabilities are usually able to work as effectively, if not more so, than any other applicant. Take Jerry Berrier, a blind person who was once ashamed that he couldn’t proofread his own memos at work and felt he wasn’t an asset. Once speech-to-text technology came online around 1985, his productivity soared. “People tend to expect very little of someone with disabilities. They just can’t imagine themselves being able to do what I’ve done, because they think of what would happen if they went blind right now. I’ve had 60 years of experience and a chance to get a lot of practice,” Berrier, who works at Perkins School for the Blind, says. “But I would like for people to be willing to [let me] do things if I feel like I can do them.” By offering employment opportunities, everyone benefits.

What (Definitely) Not to Say

1. “I’ll pray for you to be healed.”

Pity is one of the most offensive responses to a person’s disability. It’s an ineluctable reality for those who have them, and a significant number report they wouldn’t reverse their condition, even if they had the chance. While prayers may come from a genuine place, most people who are disabled would probably prefer if you send your good intentions to your congressman to fight for independent living facilities, safeguards for health coverage and enforcement of the ADA’s ban on employment discrimination.

Many people with disabilities also consider it equally patronizing to heap praise on their “inspirational” life. For those of us growing up in the Oprah generation, we don’t see the harm in a compliment. But as someone with a disability, Carlson explains, “We are just trying to live our lives like everyone else. Your comment will have the negative effect, reminding us how different people still think we are.”

2. “We’ve got two wheelchairs coming through.”

No one wants their personhood reduced to their equipment. Along with that, there’s plenty of other outdated, dehumanizing language to avoid: cripple, retard, victim, dumb or mute, insane, deformed, lame, invalid. Handicapped, in vogue for two decades after the 1970s, is also out of fashion as people came to prefer “disabilities,” a term that connoted a medical reality but didn’t imply a perpetual disadvantage in society, journalist Jack A. Nelson writes in “The Disabled, the Media, and the Information Age.” Some new terms like “differently abled” or “physically challenged” are also viewed as over-the-top, so hypersensitive as to be insensitive. “If you sprain your ankle, you’re physically challenged. That’s not the same as being culturally and physically defined as disabled,” says Watlington.
What’s considered best is to recognize a person’s humanity first, then their disability. Say a “person with epilepsy,” for example, rather than an “epileptic.” “To say that someone is ‘disabled’ implies that she or he is broken or flawed,” says Stephens. Using person-first language “attributes it more as a modifier and not an inherent part of their being,” Stephens adds. Of course, if you’re unsure which term a person prefers, asking will always get you the right answer.

3. “Were you born with that affliction?”

Besides often mistaking a disability for the whole person, people generally associate disabilities with suffering and pain. They can’t imagine a disabled person being happy and see her as a victim. “I have had perfect strangers come up to me and instead of greeting me or saying hello, they say, ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’” Tim Vaughn, marketing director for Eastman Kodak, tells DiversityInc. Like the rest of us, people with disabilities are looking for fulfillment in their lives — despite the extra hurdles they need to overcome. That’s not to say they don’t miss abilities, even ones they never had. “Anytime I hear someone talking about what’s outside the window, I lament that I can’t see,” Berrier says. But he finds other ways to bring himself joy like studying bird sounds, a beauty that surrounds all of us but that is ignored by most.

4. “You wouldn’t be able to handle children.”

One of the biggest upcoming battles disability advocates see on the horizon is protecting family life. Questions linger about whether a person with disabilities would be fit to take care of a child or might even pass on a hereditary condition to their child. But behind this argument lurks the assumption that people with disabilities are incapable, an argument used to justify the government’s sterilization of 60,000 Americans with disabilities by 1960. Just because someone may have physical challenges, however, does not mean she’d be a bad parent. “Any time we start making assumptions about what people can and cannot do, we’re getting into scary territory,” Watlington says.

5. “But how do you go to the bathroom?”

While it might be okay to inquire about someone’s medical condition, asking a stranger about the intimate details of their lives risks turning him or her into a sideshow curiosity. There is obviously a need to educate people about accessibility issues, but there’s also a limit to what needs to be discussed. You wouldn’t question anyone else about her restroom habits, and there’s no reason to think that a person’s disability makes it acceptable to ask.
MORE: Ever Wondered What to Say to a Homeless Person? Here Are 5 Things to Say and 5 Things Not to Say

The Ingenious Way That Those with Traumatic Brain Injuries Are Getting Back on Their Feet

The news seemed like a death sentence: In 1998, Anne Dunlap, a pretty young woman in Delaware, suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car crash, severely impairing her daily functioning. Even with physical therapy, she struggled to juggle multiple basic tasks at one time. Walking while talking, for instance, had to be slowly relearned during 16 years of lessons at a clinic.
At least, that is, until Cole Galloway, a professor in the physical therapy department at the University of Delaware in Newark and the inventor of the Go Baby Go cars for disabled children, talked with Dunlap about what she wanted. “I was in a room with Anne and a bunch of other therapists,” Galloway tells NationSwell on a recent afternoon as he strolled the campus. “Someone asked her, ‘Hey, Anne, what would you like to do?’ She said immediately — she’s a very fashion-oriented kid — ‘Oh, I want to be in sales. I want to work at a mall.’”
Everybody in the room had heard this answer before and moved on, as it was just another routine blank to fill in. But Dunlap’s wish caused Galloway to wonder: Could physical therapy based in real-world actions — not exercises in an antiseptic rehab clinic — improve recovery time? To test his theory, he invented a harness system that could be rigged up on the ceiling of a small kiosk, giving Dunlap enough support to be fully mobile. Within a matter of weeks, the Go Baby Go Cafe opened. Dunlap’s new physical therapy regiment involved scooping ice cream, making coffee and taking cash at the pop-up store’s register.
[ph]
“We’ve spent hundreds of millions on rehabilitative robotics, but very few, if any, have ever jumped out of the lab and into the community. That’s how difficult it is to design rehab technology for the real world from within the traditional lab,” he declares. “We have to look at things that have never been considered: aesthetics or performance in the real world. We should be going to Starbucks and asking, ‘What do you need to work here?’ then build a design to allow someone to serve a latte while standing, work on their arm or hand function. That’s the new engineering feat: to build laboratory-grade change in the real world.”
At the Go Baby Go coffee stand, the aroma of freshly ground espresso beans hovers in the air as employees hand out single and double scoops of vanilla, butter pecan and black raspberry ice cream. The only thing setting it apart from java bars at other college campuses? Its harness system, which looks like a four-poster canopy and is built with aluminum and steel bars. Following Galloway’s past success with low-tech materials (purchased from Toys ’R ’Us), he aimed for a model that could be cheaply reproduced.
“We’re working really hard to build stuff that’s simple,” Galloway says. “We prototype lightly so we can get it into the community and make it commercially available.”
An added feature of this system, like Go Baby Go’s cars, is its full-range mobility. Rather than limiting a person’s movement to one straight line, Dunlap is free to go in any direction within the enclosed 50-square-foot space, held up by the bars overhead. And the whole setup is portable, meaning it can be taken down from the science building’s lobby and reassembled anywhere.
“It’s very easy to move around in. It doesn’t feel like there’s any kind of drag, and the harness feels light when I’m moving,” Dunlap tells the Newark (Del.) Post. “I feel comfortable and liberated because I’m secure and protected, and I don’t have to worry about falling.”
[ph]
Galloway, who got his start in physical therapy because he “loves movement” of all kinds — from the simple stuff like walking and sitting to ballet and gymnastics, hopes the harness system will have applications for people from all walks of life. Beyond physical therapy, the support system can assist anyone that needs extra support or balance, particularly children with developmental disabilities and the elderly. Serving as an interim device between relying on a walker and being confined to a wheelchair, the harnesses could be set up in school playgrounds, food trucks, family living rooms and workplaces.
Studies of Go Baby Go’s effectiveness are currently being funded by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Yet Galloway describes himself as a “pretty reluctant researcher.” While his lab prefers to see his prototypes out in public, they know a device works when they hear both positive feedback from the people who need it and receive solid data from his lab.
“We see no reason to wait for years of research to tell you that [with this device] a person who can’t stand or walk on their own has the potential to actually work in a cafe,” Galloway says, “Especially when your grandma would say today, ‘That’s gonna work.'”
Dunlap will tell you the same thing. She’s confident in her progress, so much so that she recently went down to her favorite coffee shop — not for a latte, but to drop off a job application.
[ph]

This Seattle Seahawks Player Made the Super Bowl Sound Sweeter to These Hearing-Impaired Twins

The story is enough to soften the hearts of even the most diehard Denver Broncos fans (this writer included). Derrick Coleman, the Seattle Seahawks’ hearing-impaired and tough-as-nails fullback, received a letter recently from 9-year-old Riley Kovalcik, who along with her sister Erin, shares his disability. “I know how you feel.” Riley wrote. “I also have hearing aids. Just try your best. I have faif [faith] in you Derrick.” The girls’ father tweeted the heartfelt letter to Coleman on January 21st. The next day, he tweeted his own letter back. “I want you to know that I always try my best in everything I do and have faith in you and your twin sister too,” Coleman wrote. “Even though we wear hearing aids, we can still accomplish our goals and dreams.” He ended the letter with a wish to meet the girls sometime to “play some sports or games.”
DON’T MISS: Charity Bowl: Which Super-Bowl Bound Team Wins the Title of Most Philanthropic?
Well, he did a lot more than that. On Thursday morning, the girls appeared via video stream from their home in New Jersey on Good Morning America, where they were visited by Derrick Coleman himself. The trio took a selfie (naturally), and then Coleman delivered them an even bigger surprise: tickets to the Super Bowl for the whole family. The girls’ reacted with huge smiles and an even bigger hug.
Coleman is the first legally deaf player in the NFL and recently became a bit of a spokesman for people with disabilities after starring in a Duracell commercial that has been viewed almost 14 million times on YouTube. The ad told the story of how Coleman was bullied growing up and that he was told to give up his dream of playing in the NFL. Not surprisingly, this resonated with the Kovalcik twins. “The first time I saw it, we were actually tearing a little bit,” Riley told GMA. “We were so happy that there was actually somebody that was good and could understand everything about hearing aids and that could help you.” Needless to say, this heartwarming Super Bowl story is not soon to be forgotten.
[ph]

When This Dad Looked at His Autistic Son, He Saw a Business Opportunity Not a Handicap

When David Friedman’s autistic son, Matt, turned 14, the family was faced with a reality check: How would Matt get through high school and find a job that would allow him to support himself? According to Autism Speaks, a national advocacy organization, almost 90% of young adults with autism are currently unemployed. “This represents a vast amount of high-potential human capital, sitting around untapped,” Friedman wrote in an AdAge column. He knew that Matt could thrive in a work environment that supported his (and other autistic adults’) unique talents, such as pattern memory, extreme focus and accuracy. As a corporate executive, Friedman also recognized that some of the most tedious, process-oriented tasks at large companies, such as website maintenance, data entry and software testing, are either outsourced or handled by junior-level employees who find the processes mundane, leading to high turnover rates and drops in quality. But these jobs — with their patterns and details — are perfectly suited for individuals with autism. It was just a matter of connecting the two.
MORE: Meet Brad, an Autistic 25-Year-Old Who Wants to Build Your Furniture
Friedman left his corporate job and founded AutonomyWorks, an organization that offers its clients a pool of highly trained workers, all with autism spectrum disorder, who can perform these process tasks with the utmost precision. AutonomyWorks takes a job, breaks it into clearly defined tasks and assigns it to one of their associates, who completes them, while adhering to quality control monitors. These associates work in an office environment that is crafted to suit their needs. Each worker also receives occupational therapy, job coaching and life skills training in the workplace, so as to make them as successful as possible in their new careers.
Since launching in 2012, AutonomyWorks now employs 15 people (11 with autism and four managers). By the end of 2015, the organization hopes to have completed a service center in Chicago that would employ 300 associates, giving that many more young adults with autism an opportunity to thrive on their own.
MORE: This Urban Farm Has a Very Unusual Key to Success

How a Man With Down Syndrome Made This Establishment the “World’s Friendliest Restaurant”

Tim Harris has Down Syndrome. He also owns and operates his own restaurant, Tim’s Place in Albuquerque, which is known around town as the “world’s friendliest restaurant.” It’s easy to see why. “We serve breakfast, lunch and hugs,” Tim said in a video created by AOL (although just last week the restaurant also started serving dinner). “The hugs are the best part.” Every morning, Harris gets up at 5:30 a.m. and literally dances his way to work. Every customer who comes through the doors at Tim’s Place is greeted by the hands-on owner, who introduces himself and pulls them into a big hug. In Harris’s eyes, it’s the hugs that make the place special. “The hugs are way more important than the food,” he says. When he was a kid, Harris told his mom and dad, Keith and Jeannie, that he wanted to run a restaurant. As he got older, his parents recognized that this was a dream that wasn’t going away. Now, Tim’s Place is a family affair. Harris’s dad helped him get the business started, and his older brother Dan is the restaurant’s operations manager. As far as the family knows, Harris is the only person with Down syndrome to run a restaurant in the U.S., but they hope he won’t be the last. “I did not let my disability crush my dreams,” Harris says. “People with disabilities, they can do anything they set their mind to. We’re a gift to the world.”
MORE: The Restaurant Without a Cash Register

All This ‘American Girl’ Wanted Was a Doll With a Story Like Hers

Like most 10-year-old girls, Melissa Shang loves American Girl dolls and their accompanying backstories. But she doesn’t see herself in any of them. Shang has Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, a form of muscular dystrophy that causes nerve damage and muscle weakness in the arms and legs, making it difficult to get around without leg braces or a walker. Shang has been collecting American Girl dolls for years, but now, with the help of her 17-year-old sister YingYing, she’s petitioning the company to make their next “Girl of the Year”–a special edition doll released annually–a character with whom she can identify.
“Being a disabled girl is hard,” Melissa wrote on her Change.org petition. “Muscular Dystrophy prevents me from activities like running and ice-skating, and all the stuff that other girls take for granted. For once, I don’t want to be invisible or a side character that the main American Girl has to help.”
American Girl embraces diversity —  in the company’s official statement regarding the Shang sisters’ petition, a representative pointed out that its dolls have had various racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as accessories like hearing aids, wheelchairs and guide dogs that can be purchased to go with any of the dolls. But for Melissa, additional accessories aren’t enough. “I want other girls to know what it’s like to be me, through a disabled American Girl’s story,” she writes. “American Girls are supposed to represent all the girls that make up American history, past and present. That includes disabled girls.”
The Shang sisters’ earnest plea has become one of the fast-growing campaigns in Change.org history, garnering more than 16,400 signatures in its first 48 hours. Since then, more than 63,000 people have signed, making the petition less than 12,000 signatures shy of reaching its goal. American Girl hasn’t said whether they’ll fulfill the sisters’ request. But either way, the story of 10-year-old Melissa Shang is an inspiration to disabled girls all on its own.
[ph]
MORE: This Video May Change the Way You Think About the Disabled

This Video May Change the Way You Think About the Disabled

For this powerful campaign by Pro Infirmis, an advocacy organization for people with physical disabilities, artists re-created the standard mannequin in order to challenge society’s perception of body “perfection.” It might be the shock on the faces of the passers-by who saw the results or the amazement on the faces of the subjects of this art-meets-commerce-meets-social-action effort, but this video will change the way you think about people with disabilities.