The R-word campaign started in 2004 when the athletes of the Special Olympics called for an end to the phrase “mental retardation”. At that time the Special Olympics International Board of Directors adopted a resolution to change their terminology to “intellectual disabilities” (r-word.org, n.d.). The athletes requested this change as they felt that the word “retardation” was used too often as an insult. In 2010, the U.S. Congress passes Rosa’s Law that required Federal agencies to change terminology to “intellectual disability” on specific Federal laws. Initially, titles II and XVI (disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income) did not fall under this law, but as of September 3, 2013 the Social Security Administration adopted the change also (Social Security Administration, 2013). It is interesting to look at the history of term used to describe people with developmental disabilities. Human nature has a …show more content…
way of turning words from innocent to harmful, but it is not the words, it is the intent to use the words to hurt that is the problem. In an article on History of Stigmatizing Names for Intellectual Disabilities, Reynolds, Zupanick, and Dombeck (2013), write about how different words evolve from medical terms to insults. In 1846, S. G. Howe wrote a book On the Causes of Idiocy and was the first to offer a classification of what we now call Intellectual Disability. Howe categorized people based on severity and included idiots who had some muscular control and some cognitive functioning, fools who had almost no reasoning skills and major delays in speech and then simpletons had motor skills, adequate reasoning and could complete daily activities with some guidance. Even the phrase moron was initially invented by a psychologist with a very specific intent – to describe someone with mild intellectual disabilities. Retarded came along from the Latin word retardare, which means to make slow, or delay. The first recorded use of the word was in 1895, but by the 1960’s it was used as an insult. Why the history lesson?
Because when I think of what to do about the r-word, my first thought is not about the actual word “retarded”. When I graduated in 1992 and started working as a physical therapy assistant with people with developmental delay the term was used as a medical diagnosis. That’s how I used it, and that is how it was used in reports and charts. Was it used as an insult? Yes, and before I worked with the population I admit I also used it that way. But, when I realized what the term was, and started working with people with Intellectual disabilities, I realized it was wrong, and I stopped using it for anything other them clinical reasons. Reynolds et al (2013), bring up a good point – the words moron, fool, idiot and retarded all started out as purely clinical terms to help understand developmental delay. In fact, Howe came up with his classification to help demonstrate that not all people with delays are the same, a positive reason. But it was the general population that decided to take these words and use them as an
insult. So, while I am all for the campaign to end the use of the r-word and applaud the students I work with that speak up and against something that hurts them, I think the bigger issue is to get people to stop thinking it is okay to insult each other with a phrase that is a term for someone with special needs. The educational piece that I think is important is explaining that it is never okay to insult someone by using a term that describes someone else. To just change the term, without explaining why, just means eventually the new term will become the insult. What I like is seeing people with all levels of disabilities shown respect. I would like to see an educational push on why using a term that describes someone with a delay as an insult is not okay. I think the way to do this is to continue with showing people with all levels of disability out in public, living life just like everyone else. If we stop seeing those with intellectual disabilities as “not as good” as others, then the descriptors the medical community uses will become less entertaining. Just as people would never use the term cancer survivor as an insult, we should have never thought to use the medical term retardation as an insult. Changing the term is easy, changing human nature is the tough part.
This lack of correlation between facts and her claim happens throughout her entire article and really hurts the article's credibility. After listing a slew of facts and anecdotes her response was “I find these facts and statistics terrifying”, this explanation does not give any insight on why on I should stop saying “retard” or the consequences that saying has. Throughout her entire article the only real point that states why we shouldn't say the R-word is because it hurts her feelings. I belive that hurt feelings are not what I would call a good reason in an argument to ban the word retard. Her entire article is based on appealing to people's emotions rather than appealing to people’s logic. A great contrast to Patricia Bauer’s article is Christopher Fairman’s “The Case Against Banning the Word ‘Retard’. Although he uses less facts and statistics than Bauer’s article, he uses them in a more impactful way and states how the fact is connected on the use of the word. One such example of this is when he talks about the N-word as an
The human race is rather ignorant. We give a label to people that we think are challenged because they are not like the majority. The people that do label, are the ones who are truly blind or deaf. They see nothing, they hear nothing except what they want to hear or what they think they want to hear or see. For you see the "handicapped" can do things that non-handicapped can not. If one really thinks about it, they are not handicapped. If any one is handicapped it is the
In “A Movie, A Word, and My Family’s Battle,” by Patricia Bauer makes an emotional argument that you cannot use the word “retard”, no matter how you mean it, without offending a large group of people while also setting back years of progress.
Over forty million Americans are disabled, whether it is a physical, sensory, cognitive, or mental disability. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was signed into law in 1973. This law states that no handicapped individual shall be disqualified from partaking, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program receiving federal financial assistance. The foundation of the Section 504 is from the language of preceding civil rights laws that sheltered women and minorities. Section recognizes that history proves that humanity has treated people with disabilities as second-class citizens based on previous stereotypes. These types of attitudes have translated into policies based on paternalism. Section has acknowledged the discrimination of many children and adults. Senator Hubert Humphrey, who supported the Section, has said, “The time has come to firmly establish the right of disabled Americans to dignity of self-respect as equal and contributing members of society and to end the virtual isolation of millions of children and adults.” (Smith, 2001) In all, Section 504 has significantly altered the common and legal perception of civilization.
Labeling theory is an issue that has been raised that deserves a closer look. Labeling theory, the impression that the public labels certain people as different from the normal conduct. (Popple and Leighninger, 2011) Everyone labels in society. An actor can be labeled into a certain part thought out his/her career. A boss is labeled horrible for firing one individual. Society uses labels and it defines people. The book brought up two points of labeling that should be explored. The first point is the label of developmental disabilities will give a diagnosis. People who have developmental disabilities have it, and they cannot change the situation. It can be manageable, but there will always be the label. The second point is that the society label and perception of the label. There is a stigma in the public about developmental disabilities. Although more accepted than mental illness, developmental disability has a label of individuals being stupid and slow. Labeling theory can be seen throughout history. Chapter thirteen points out that history can shape individual’s label of developmentally disabilities.
Erkulwater, Jennifer L. Disability Rights and the American Social Safety Net. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
The following is a response and reflection to the article “People First Language” by Kathie Snow. My first personal interpretation of the article was of a person on a rampage and I could not understand the content of the article. The author Kathie Snow seemed to be upset that people with disabilities are labeled, instead of being addressed by their name. In her article, it appeared that she was using false analogies. Her article compared people with disabilities and medical diagnoses like psoriasis, arthritis, diabetes. I am not sure if I agree with this analogy, because not all disabilities are a physical medical issue. Some disabilities are cognitive, social, or emotional and really have no relationship with medical disabilities. Although, it takes a professional medical person in some subfield of the medical field to diagnose a disability, it just seems that, there is no correlation between medical physical issues and disability. On the other hand, there were parts of the article that
"Disability the facts." New Internationalist Nov. 2013: 20+. Advanced Placement Government and Social Studies Collection. Web. 27 May 2014.
The first article I read was about disability portrayal and the media today. He talks about a show where the actor with a disability plays a character with a disability. That is great because it makes more sense to have someone disabled play a disabled part. A disabled person can not play a auto bodied role, so where is the fairness in that? He also talks about how disney made a movie about someone with a mental disability. Although it was played by a auto body actor, the story was authentic because it was told by the actually twin sister. I actually did see that movie a couple years ago. I enjoyed the movie and the storyline was good. He also said disability roles are the easiest way to a oscar. One of those movies if Forrest Gump. It is kinda sad that having to play being disabled is a way to get an oscar. Most disabled roles have sad stories, so it seems like them make you feel bad in order to win an oscar.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in programs conducted by Federal agencies, in programs receiving Federal financial assistance, in Federal employment, and in the employment practices of Federal contractors (US Department of Justice, 2011...
Children with disabilities are more in the public eye than years ago, although they are still treated differently. Our society treats them differently from lack of education on special needs. The society labels them and make their lives more difficult than it has to be becau...
The word had been in common use and this group strived to eliminate the inappropriate usage of the word and the phrase “mental retardation” all together and replace it with “intellectual disabilities”. With the beginning of the R-word campaign, in 2009, a group of students created the first annual day of “Spread the Word to End the Word”. The R-word campaign is important when considering the evolution of the way this word is viewed because it is seen as a swear
Through my service I helped and assisted people who were born with a developmental disability. A developmental disability is a mental or physical disability, such as cerebral palsy or mental retardation, that is present during childhood, interferes with normal physical, intellectual, or emotional development, and usually lasts throughout life. With this type of disability, these people have trouble performing simple everyday task. My service called me to assist these people with everyday task that would seem simple to you and me, such as getting dressed, eating, household chores, going in public, and extracurricular activities.
Disability: Any person who has a mental or physical deterioration that initially limits one or more major everyday life activities. Millions of people all over the world, are faced with discrimination, the con of being unprotected by the law, and are not able to participate in the human rights everyone is meant to have. For hundreds of years, humans with disabilities are constantly referred to as different, retarded, or weird. They have been stripped of their basic human rights; born free and are equal in dignity and rights, have the right to life, shall not be a victim of torture or cruelty, right to own property, free in opinion and expression, freedom of taking part in government, right in general education, and right of employment opportunities. Once the 20th century
Imagine a six year old little girl who wants to skate on a skating rink. This girl loves skating and she was excited. Her mom was upset when the employee told her that her daughter could not be on the rink because she had to be in a wheelchair. Also the mom realized that same day that they had no accessible parking spots so the mom told the city and they ended up putting 2 accessible parking spots in. Thankfully there was a law in place that could do something about this incident and they ended up getting to go skating because there were laws against discrimination. The United States is considering making new laws that would protect people with disabilities but there are pros and cons to this issue. The CRPD was established to look into this issue and advise law makers. There have been many articles written about this issue and two of them are “Should the Government Specifically Mandate Rights for the Disabled” and “A Fine Balance: Reconsidering Patient Autonomy in Light of the Un Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” by Jillian Craigie.