Alliance of People with disAbilities

I Dream. I Can. I Will.

Person First Language

By using words with dignity,
we encourage equality for everyone.

Say	Avoid
Person with a disAbility	Crippled Disabled Handicapped Impaired Invalid
Person who has a disAbility	Afflicted with… Suffers from… Victim
Person without a disAbility	Normal Non-disabled
Uses a wheelchair	Confined to a wheelchair Restricted to a wheelchair
Person who is deaf/hard of hearing Person who does not vocalize/speak	Deaf/MuteDeaf & Dumb
Person who was born with… Person who has a congenital disAbility	Birth defectDeformed
Has a psychiatric disAbility Has schizophrenia	Crazy/Insane
Has short stature	Midget Elf Dwarf Imp
Has a developmental disAbility	Slow Dumb Stupid