Guidelines for Reporting and Writing about People with Disabilities

As a professional communicator, you are in a unique position to shape the public image of people with disabilities. The words and images you use can create a straightforward, postiive view of people with disabilities or an insensitive portrayal that reinforces common myths and is a form of discrimination.

These Guidelines are intended to help you make better choices in terms of language and portrayal. They reflect input from over 100 national disability organizations, and have been reviewed and endorsed by media and disability experts thruout the United States.

We are not victims, we are veterans
We are not sufferers, we are survivors

Please consider the following when writing about people with disabilities

1. Do not focus on a disability unless it is crucial to a story. Avoid tear-jerking human interest stories about incurable diseases, congenital impairments, or severe injury. Focus instead on issues that affect the quality of life for those same individuals, such as accessible transportation, housing, affordable health care, employment opportunities, and discrimination.

2. Do not portray successful people with disabilities as superhuman. Even though the public may admire superachievers, portraying people with disabilities as superstars raises false expectations that all people with disabilities should achieve at this level.

3. Do not sensationalize a disability by saying "afflicted with," "cripples with", "suffers from," "victim of," and so on. Instead, say "person who has VHL," or "man dealing with the challenges of VHL."

4. Do not use generic labels for disability groups, such as "the blind," "the deaf." Emphasize people not labels. Say "people who are deaf."

5. Put people first, not their disability. Say "woman with VHL," "man who is deaf." This puts the focus on the individual, not the particular functional limitation. Because of editorial pressures to be succinct, we know it is not always possible to put people first. If the portrayal is positive and accurate, consider the following variations: disabled citizens, wheelchair-user, paralyzed child, and so on.

6. Emphasize abilities not limitations. For example: "uses a wheelchair, walks with crutches," rather than "confined to a wheelchair, wheelchair-bound, or is crippled. Similarly, do not use emotional descriptors such as unfortunate, pitiful, and so forth.

7. Show people with disabilities as active participants of society. Portraying persons with disabilities interacting with nondisabled people in social and work environments helps break down barriers and open lines of communication.

Thank you!