Towards a new term for physical disability

Abstract

We found it interesting to raise the issue of terminology because words often carry connotations that create certain, sometimes harmful, associations around their meanings, which need to be taken into account.

This has been the case with the labels applied to people with physical impairments, who have often been homogenized based on partial perspectives and preconceived ideas.

Thus, terms such as crippled, lame, disabled, deficient, impaired... and more recently handicapped, have tended to view such individuals from a generalized and negative perspective, as if having a physical impairment inevitably implies disability in other areas.

For this reason, our phrasing ‘(child, adult) with a physical impairment’ specifically limits the reference to the affected domain rather than to the whole person, as other terms ambiguously do.