What is an Intellectual  Disability?

An intellectual disability is a disability characterized by significant limitations both in intellectual

functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills.
 

What is a Developmental Disability?

A developmental disability is chronic and attributable to a mental or physical impairment or both. The criteria for determining developmental disability are:  manifestation before age of 22, unless resulting from head injury that occurs at any age likely to continue indefinitely, substantial limitation in three or more of the following areas - life activity, self care, receptive and expressive language, learning, mobility, self-direction, capacity for independent living, and/or economic self-sufficiency, need for a combination and sequence of special interdisciplinary care, treatment, or other services which are lifelong or of extended duration.

 

IT'S THE PERSON FIRST - THEN THE DISABILITY

What do you see first?

 
The wheelchair? The physical problems? The person?

If you are a person in a wheelchair unable to get up the stairs into a building, would you say, -there is a handicapped person unable to find a ramp?" Or would you say, "there is a person with a disability who is unable to access a building?"

What is the proper way to speak or to introduce someone who has a, disability?

Consider how you would introduce someone - Jane Doe - who doesn't have a disability. You would give her name, where she lives, what she does or what she is interested in, she likes swimming, or eating Mexican food, or watching movies.

Why say it differently for a person with a disability? Every person is made up of many characteristics -mental as well as physical. Few people want to be identified only by their ability to play tennis or by their love for fried onions.

In speaking or writing, remember that children or adults with disabilities are like ‑everyone else except they happen to have a disability. Therefore, here are a few tips for improving your language related to people with disabilities.

1. Speak of the person first, then the disability

2. Emphasize abilities, not limitations.  

3. Do not label people as part of a disability group. Don't say "the disabled." Instead say "people with disabilities."  

4. Don't give excessive praise or attention to people with disabilities: don't patronize them.  

5. Choice & independence are important. Let the person do or speak for him or herself as much as possible.  

6. A disability is a functional limitation that interferes with a person's ability to walk, hear, talk learn etc. Use handicap to describe a situation or barrier imposed by society, the environment or oneself.