State of New Hampshire Governor's Commission on Disability

Using Person First Language
Please Remember
It is about the PERSON, not the disability.

PLEASE USE	PLEASE AVOID USING
Person with a disability	the disabled; handicapped, crippled, afflicted with, suffers from, victim of, physically challenged, deformed, invalid, stricken with, vegetable, defective, a patient
Person with an intellectual, cognitive, or developmental disability	retarded; mentally defective, childlike, mentally deficient, feeble-minded person, slow, Down's person, Mongoloid, vegetable
Person who is deaf	hearing impaired; deaf mute; deaf and dumb
Person who is blind	the blind
Person who is visually impaired	legally blind
Person who is hard of hearing	suffers a hearing loss, dumb
Person who does not have a disability	normal person, able-bodied, typical
Person who has multiple sclerosis	epileptic, epileptic fits
Person with cerebral palsy	Cerebral Palsy victim, retarded, slow
Person with epilepsy, Person with seizure disorder	epileptic, epileptic fits
Person who just had a seizure	He took a fit.
Person who uses a wheelchair	confined or restricted to a wheelchair, wheelchair- bound, quadriplegic, quad, paraplegic
Person who has muscular dystrophy	stricken by, victim of muscular dystrophy
Person with a physical disability, Person who is physically disabled	crippled, lame; deformed, handicapped, gimp, physically changed, cripple, invalid
Person who is a dwarf; Person of short stature	midget, small or short person
Person who is unable to speak, or who uses synthetic speech	dumb; mute, tongue tied
Person with a mental health issue, psychiatric disability	crazy; nuts, psycho, nut case, mental, schizo, mental case, dumb, stupid, looney, lunatic, wacko, mental patient, head case, wack job, retarded, mentally ill, mentally disturbed
Accessible parking (or entrance or bathroom)	handicapped parking (or entrance or bathroom)

Adapted from:

1. The Access Center For Independent Living, "Talking About Disability" Dayton, Ohio, www.acils.com/acil/talking.html
2. West Virginia Developmental Disability Council, People First Language, www.wvddc.org/people_first.html

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