Person with disabilities

This refers to a person with specific physical, sensory, cognitive, or psychosocial conditions, who encounters barriers that prevent them from fully and effectively participating in society, in a level playing field.

In the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities these conditions are included as long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments (United Nations, 2006). However, the movement of people with disabilities has been rethinking the understanding of impairment and limitation while revindicating the value human diversity. There is no consensus on how this collective self-recognizes.

The majority of people who participated in the consultations for this platform in Spanish identify as people with disabilities because they believe disability highlights the discrimination and inequality that they have faced historically. At the same time, it represents the common language they have to demand their rights. They also agree that they can call themselves different things in private and personal contexts, including blind person, person with psychosocial diversity, deaf woman, and person who uses a wheelchair, among others.

Some organizations are emphatic and they are against the use of other words, including functional diversity because they consider them to be vague. They argue that talking about disability allows for understanding at the local and international level.

Regardless of the name that people with disabilities use for themselves, the people that were consulted to develop this platform recommend that communication experts embrace an inclusive language based on a human rights approach and the one recognized by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In this sense, emphasis should be placed on the person, not on the disability, and efforts should be made to avoid pejorative and negative terms that refer to a person based only a one of their personal conditions. As a result, we recommend avoiding the use of words such as disabled or disabled person. We also recommend avoiding euphemisms, such as differently-abled, because they hide the needs and support that people with disabilities are entitled to.