NO GETTING OFFENDED!

kelsorino

Thu, Mar 06 2014, 4:16 am

I'm asking this because I seriously would like to know what the socially appropriate term is to call someone who is mentally challenged. I find that No matter what term I use there is someone that sais that is offensive. Those of you with someone with special needs in your life how do you prefer people refer to them?

m in Israel

Thu, Mar 06 2014, 6:32 am

I agree with amother/curlgirl. The least offensive way to refer to a person with any disability is "a person with XYZ". Not to use the disability as an adjective, and not to just use the general term "challenged/ disabled".

So you can say "a person with PDD" or "children who have developmental delays" or "my neighbor who has Down Syndrome" rather than "a mentally challenged person".

2 main components: Put the person first, and be specific in your description of the limitation, rather than a broad general description.

ora_43

Thu, Mar 06 2014, 8:24 am

Now I'm curious. What if you do need a broad description?

Like, for instance, there's a vast range of mental illnesses, personality disorders, etc, but if you're talking about government funding for psychiatric care facilities in general you're going to say something like "assistance for people with mental illness," not "people with schizophrenia and people with borderline personality disorder and people with... " etc.

What's the least-offensive comparable term here? In American English.

m in Israel

Thu, Mar 06 2014, 8:40 am

ora_43 wrote:

Agencies will usually have their own protocol as to how to refer to different issues. When I worked for the NYC DOE the Committee for Special Education had very specific criteria in terms of what language to use when classifying individuals -- for example they would get upset if you wrote on an IEP "learning disabled" rather than "learning disability"!

The point is that it would depend on the context. What does that broad description need to include? If "mental illness" is the most specific description you can give then use it. But generally the more you "lump" different issues under broad stereotypes, the greater the risk that it will come out offensive. OP is pretty vague as to what she is trying to describe. I've honestly never heard what shirachadasha used ("intellectual disability"), but it sounds good to me, assuming it is used correctly. I still would use the people first rule, though ("person with an intellectual disability" rather than "intellectually disabled person"). And I would only use it if I needed a broad description for some reason.