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Effective Interaction: Communicating With and About People with Disabilities in the Workplace

Following are examples of appropriate and inappropriate phrases to describe persons with disabilities.

Positive Phrases

Negative Phrases

Person with an intellectual, cognitive, developmental disability

The retarded; mentally retarded

Person who is blind or visually impaired

The blind

Person with a disability

The disabled; handicapped

Person who is deaf or hard of hearing

The deaf; deaf and dumb

Person with multiple sclerosis

Someone afflicted by MS

Person with cerebral palsy

A CP victim

Person with epilepsy or a seizure disorder

An epileptic; person with fits

Person who has muscular dystrophy

Someone stricken by MD

Person who uses a wheelchair; wheelchair user

Person confined, bound or restricted to a wheelchair

Person who is unable to speak, person who uses synthetic speech

A mute

Person with a psychiatric disability

A crazy person

Person with a physical disability, person who is physically disabled

Person who is crippled, lame or deformed

Person who is successful, productive

Person who has overcome his/her disability; person who is courageous

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