People First Language-revisited

I have written about this topic before, yet in my recent classes it has come up again.

Among a group of teachers I frequently hear phrases like "the IEP kids" or "the SPED kids." I think that my distaste for such phrases stems from my training in special education because throughout my program we were always taught to use "people first" language. Basically people first language asserts that you should speak of the student/person first before labeling them with a disability or "problem." It speaks to the fact that a disability does not define a person.

www.disabilityisnatural.com offers some great articles on this topic if you are interesting in finding out more information.

People with disabilities are PEOPLE. They can be moms, dads, sons, daughters, employees, friends, neighbors, students, teachers, doctors, presidents and more. People with disabilities should be recognized as people first and not characterized simply by the disability they have. Snow indicates that the real problem is never a person's disability, but the attitudes of others. Whether intentional or unintentional, the words that people use can be hurtful.

My hope is that more people will learn to understand people first language and to acknowledge that people with disabilities are people, with feelings, hopes, beliefs, and talents. They are unique and offer gifts to the world. They may not be good at everything, but who is? If I were a student with a disability, I would want my teacher to see me as a dancer, or a girl who likes to draw, or a girl who smiles a lot rather than the "IEP kid." I think we owe it to all our students to think of them as individuals and to recognize what makes them unique and special without labeling them or boxing them into certain categories

Some of the students that I have had with disabilities have brought so much joy into my life. They achieved so much in my classroom and it was a joy to be their teacher. I hope that most people they encounter in their lives see them for all that they have and all that they are rather than just defining them with a label and a disability.

It frustrates me that people still use the term retarded (and often think it is a funny way to crack a joke) but I try to realize when I hear comments or statements such as that, most people have not been taught an alternative way to speak about individuals with disabilities. I do think, however, that educators should be able to model how to speak about individuals with special needs without assigning harmful labels or speaking in a way that makes assumptions about individuals based on a generalized label.

I am doing a project for one of my classes about the effects of labeling on students, particularly students with special needs and English Language Learners. I am trying to see if there exists a correlation between labels and teacher expectations of the students who are labeled. .