Student Activities |
Disabilities Myths and Realities |
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| STUDENT DISCUSSION ACTIVITY |
Myth: The lives of peoplewith disabilities are totallydifferent from those ofmost people Reality: People withdisabilities attend school and work, develop personal relationshipsraise families. shop, pay taxes, vote, and dream just like everyone else. |
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| PEOPLE FIRST LANGUAGE: YES OR NO?? | ||
| YES |
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| Placing the disability label first leads to defining that person as his/her disability. By placing the person first, | ||
| recognition is given to the fact that the person is much more than a label. Disability is just one aspect of | ||
| who person is - it does not define who that person is. Words are powerful and shape the way we think. | ||
| Society tends toplace stigma and view disability in a negative, problematic way, it is important to use | ||
| language in a way to create amore positive image. | ||
| NO |
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| By promoting people first language, one is accepting that disability is a bad word or a negative | ||
| characteristic rather than a source of pride. It seems to be promited only for terms that we would consider | ||
| problematic or negative. Elizabeth DePoy and others argue that it is euphemistic. "If the modifier is so | ||
| heinous as to require personhood to asserted before it, the devaluation of the modifier is pretty obvious." | ||
| (DePoy). | ||
| What do you think? | ||
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