Allison Gerlach

Professor Romano

Introduction to Special Education

September 27, 2018

People First Language Reaction Paper

People first language is very important when talking about people with disabilities. As

author, Kathie Snow, points out, defining someone by their medical diagnosis or the legal

services they use is detrimental to their whole person. Everyone has value and the multiple facets

of their identity should define that. People should be allowed to choose what characteristics they

give more weight to when they describe themselves. For example, take a person who is a middle-

aged Latina woman who lives in Idaho and has a physical disability that causes her to need

crutches to walk. Maybe she identifies most closely with the Latina community. Maybe she does

not even consider herself as part of the “disabled” community. Similarly, some people consider

themselves Deaf while some people identify as deaf. When it is written with a capital D, it means

the person identifies strongly with the deaf culture. The difference just by looking at the words is

not clear but when you know what they mean, you can see the importance that capitalization has.

You cannot just make assumptions about people just because you think their diagnosis tells you

everything about them. There is so much more to people than one aspect of their identity.

This article makes important mention of how environments can contribute to a person’s

experience with disability. Many children are not diagnosed with “special needs” until they reach

school age (Snow, 2010). This is because in the real world, parents do not have the option of

segregating their children when their behavior is challenging. They need to find techniques that

work for them. So why is that an option in a school? You should not be bringing the child down
developmentally to suit the needs of you as an educator. You need to rise to their challenges and

help them get every support they need to be successful in your classroom. Limiting the student to

the struggles that they have academically limits their positive strengths as well.

Kathie Snow’s article also talks a lot about the connotation of words. Words can have

such a profound impact on people. You can use language to inspire people but you can also use it

to tear people down if you are not mindful of the power your words hold. As I was reading this

article, I agreed with what the author was saying one-hundred percent, but when I try to

implement people first language, I find myself tongue tied. I am always nervous that I will

contribute to the negativity or make someone upset. We discussed a similar topic in my English

class regarding conversations surrounding race and prejudices rooted there. Our professor

pointed out that it is important to even be trying to improve patterns of prejudices. If you

concede to the fact that it is too hard to make that effort because you may say something wrong,

then change will never be made. We need to take that challenge and work on it until it gets easier

and until respect and positivity is the norm. As educators, especially we need to teach our

children inclusion and acceptance and respect until it is their default. It is so important that show

them the power of kindness.

While I agree with everything this article stands for, I think we are long from getting to

people first language being the norm. The “R” is still used so frequently. I hope that one day

everyone will be accepting and respectful. We need to take our awareness and our voices to

create change. We need to push for respect because far too many people sit passively on the side

lines. We need to fight for people with disabilities. We need to fight for our friends and our

families and our communities.