ADA Language
Editorial paper not for legal precedence

One of the issues shrouding this topic is how difficult it is to talk about disabilities and the people who live with them everyday.

Caveat
Today’s article is a side-bar, and a diversion from the boring details of legal responsibility. It is about language and thought - and how these intrinsic elements of our make-up can be either an upward- or a downward-spiral. This article is based on a lecture I regularly present in my class Design for All People, a professional practice elective at the University of MN, College of Architecture, and resembles an article I wrote for the Construction Specifier in 1998 entitled It’s not the Toilet that’s Handicapped.

Today’s Feature: Language and Attitude

In my experience, people have a lot of pent-up anxiety revolving around the concepts that lie at the core of disability rights and accessible design. Part of this anxiety comes from the cultural baggage that has loaded the terms we use. But, before I get started, let me say that this is not a lecture in “political correctness,” in my opinion, political correctness is about being polite, when we don’t share the heritage or concerns of a fellow traveler. That is far too trite a concept for where I am going; this essay is an exploration of the way language shapes perception, and perception shapes reality. This language lesson is about how our misuse of common words can poison our thinking, and stunt our intellectual growth.

The words handicap and disability are charged in our subconscious with negative images. Images of sick and dying people; images of beggars and lepers and images of our own mortality. (There, but by the grace of God go I. How terrifying is that?). When we attach these words to the elements of our work, or personal environments we shroud those items with the black veil of these negative images. We can not stop ourselves from feeling the dread this veil imbues.

In an effort to lift the veil, I’ve selected some key terms and concepts. My intent is to define the terms, and de-mystify them. I can’t reverse the centuries of baggage we’ve inherited, but I can bring these terms back into the light. So that we can see them more clearly, understand them and start to use them correctly.

Handicapped v. Disabled
People who have a physical, sensory or cognitive impairment may experience a loss of function related to the impairment, ie. the inability to walk, or to read. This loss or change in functional capacity is known as a disability. When the change in functional capacity results in the unsuccessful performance of daily living activities, the person is said to be handicapped. However, the unsuccessful performance is not purely the “result of” of the disabling condition. There are three factors involved in the experience, one is the person, another is the purpose (or task), and the third is the place. When a specific person, in a specific place, with a specific purpose cannot perform the intended task successfully (or safely), that person is having a handicapping experience. The results are the same for the wheelchair-user trying to enter a building with steps at the door, as for an able-bodied parent pushing children in a stroller trying to change floors in the mall at the base of an escalator. Both need an alternative to the provided means of crossing the elevation change.

Of the three elements involved in the handicapping experience (person, purpose and place), place may be the only one over which we have any measurable control. We as architects and designers are in a unique position to exercise control over the environment, and the environment is a significant factor in the ability of people to perform their tasks of daily living. We must realize the significance of this relationship, and change the way we talk about, think about and practice our work. We must learn to understand the physical actions that consumers use in the pursuit of their daily activities. It is one thing to understand the structure of post and lintel, the image of entry and another to understand the ritual of passage but if haven’t considered the consumer’s physical act of crossing the threshold then we haven’t thought through the whole problem.

People with Disabilities v. The Disabled
When we conceptualize people with disabilities as ‘the handicapped’ or ‘the disabled’, we do two terrible and inappropriate things to our minds. First we separate “them” from us; ‘the disabled’ is a category distinct from us, a category to which we do not belong. They, are therefore, alien and not like us. And second, we homogenize “them;” they are a group, one thing, alike in their difference from us.

These are both bad constructs. It is wrong to consider any group of people as not like us, aren’t we architects also people? People are people, and there is nothing so alienating as the attitude that people with disabilities are “them,” and that “they” are not to be confused with or mixed with us. It is also wrong to simplify “the disabled” into a group. People with disabilities are just as diverse a group as people with hair, or people with weight. Our challenge, as servants of our community, is to recognize its diversity, and to breakdown the stereotypes that brand our talk and constrict our thinking.

Caring v. Curing
Now that I have my motorized wheelchair (please don’t refer it as my electric-chair), I am frequently confronted with the supposed rhetorical question, Isn’t technology wonderful? Won’t it be wonderful when you can (choose: walk, talk, climb-stairs, see, hear, think) like ‘us’ again?

STOP! This is not earth-bound thinking; time for a reality-check. Technology, will not, within the foreseeable future, cure all the disabling conditions in our world. Even if, as Superman insists, we are close to a cure for spinal cord injuries, that will be for the newly injured, not the people with injuries that are more than a year old. It will do nothing for the 600,000 Americans living with post-polio paralysis, it will do nothing for people with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy or amputated limbs. It is time to accept the present and move forward in it. Research will continue, new and better treatments will be found, but some people will live with permanent disabilities. They will also have expectations for their lives, and the abilities that they need to fulfill those expectations. We must abandon the overly optimistic posture that people need to be cured to be valued. We must learn to care about the lives and life expectations of our cohorts so that we design caring and supportive environments.

People with disabilities have no more courage than the next person, but because we cannot conceive of our own lives continuing under the pressure of a disability, we project this inordinate courage onto them. This projection is only needed because we do not care enough to understand. When I first started using my wheelchair, people who knew me as a “walker” would ask, “But, you’ll get better? Right?” The answer is I’m still good! The truth is my walking days are all-but-gone, but I’m not done living, just done walking. Understanding this point, is beginning of understanding the difference between the medical model of disability (to cure) and the humanist model of disability (to care). If we did care in this way about the ability of all people to pursue their dreams, if we did understand that disability is a “normal” component of the human performance spectrum, then environments would already be accessible, and beautiful and sound.

Handicapped v. Accessible
Building elements that are designed to be useful to a broad spectrum of people, or to a specific group of people with disabilities are not “handicapped.” It is not the parking space that is handicapped; and I cannot “park” my handicap in the space and leave it behind with my car! The parking space, or building entry, or toilet room that is designed to be usable by people with disabilities is accessible. Not only is the use of the term “handicapped” in reference to such elements demeaning to the people it pretends to serve, it is blatantly wrong. The adjective means dysfunctional, it means lacking in some normal performance characteristic; this had better not be the case. But, more importantly and perversely, it continues to color our thinking with the stereotypes and negative images it raises in our minds. Every time we label a ramp, parking space or toilet as “handicapped,” we link that item to all the negative values and images the term ‘handicapped’ holds in our minds. We develop an entrenched dislike for the very concept of accessibility and we literally poison our ability to consider the elements rationally, the emotional charge is strong and largely sub-conscious.

We must learn to speak of accessible parking, accessible entries, and accessible toilets. We must break the cycle of the downward, negative imagery we are feeding ourselves. We must put in our minds an uplifting and positive image that speaks of enfranchisement and ability. We must learn to use terminology that is accurate and meaningful in its context. If we change the way we talk, we will change the way we think, and that will change the way we ‘walk’ (work).

It is time to abandon the language that keeps us from accepting the challenge of the twenty-first century. It is time to awaken our profession and our minds to the potential of the whole human family. It is time to care enough to understand, and in understanding share our knowledge in the way that only architects can; that is by developing environments that allow every individual the opportunity to reach their potential.

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