Person First Language: Creating Change or Convention?

The term Person First Language was coined to describe putting the person before the disability whenever we speak about disabilities. It is also known as People First Language, and abbreviated PFL. This linguistic prescription forms the basis of guidelines aimed at educational and medical professionals, caretakers and family members, writers and journalists, and even people who themselves live with disabilities.

Person First Language in theory

According to PFL proponent Kathie Snow, putting the person first (i.e. calling myself a "person with epilepsy" rather than saying I am epileptic) is a matter or respect and good manners. She writes, "People First Language was created by individuals who said, 'We are not our disabilities; we are people, first.'"

Does PFL respect a person's preferences?

The idea of placing emphasis on a person - abilities, interests, likes and dislikes - rather than on a disability category or medical diagnosis is a humanizing one, and it is an extremely important part of changing how society interacts with and values people who live with a disability. But does simply bring a noun before the adjective truly accomplish the goal of putting the person first in our thinking? Even if it does, should anyone have the right to decide for all people with disabilities how they will refer to themselves and how they want others to refer to their disabilities? How can that be polite, how can it respect the individual?

In my gerontology training, I was taught the best way to show respect for a person was to use their preferred form of address. This is a practice I have always tried to follow in my work, both in terms of the name by which I called an individual in my care, and in terms of speaking about their health conditions or disabilities. As an epileptic and the mother of special needs children this is my personal preference as well. Unfortunately, there is no way to respect individual preferences if our language options are limited to labels generated by a formula. No practice whose main feature is the use of prescribed labels - including Person First Language - shows respect and good manners for those individuals or groups whose preferences differ significantly from the model.

When convention can trumps clarity

Snow asks, "Do you routinely tell every Tom, Dick and Harry about the boil on your spouse's behind?" She is quite right in bringing our attention to this issue. While I don't need to tell the postal carrier, the clerk at the grocery store or my son's teacher about that boil, there is a time and place it should be discussed. If my husband indeed had a boil on his bottom, he and I may choose to discuss it with a doctor. We may want to ask about boil remedies at the pharmacy. We may also want to discuss it with a friend who was hosting a dinner party, in order that my husband be given the most comfortable seating possible.

In making a special request of our hostess we would likely want to use clear, straight forward language. If we asked for "adapted seating due to a furuncle," she may well provide him a chair with a wonderfully soft back and a rock hard seat! Sometimes the more effort we put into formulating a neutral and polite way of discussing something intimate - like a boil or a disability - the easier it is for the listener to misunderstand. And a misunderstanding requires more discussion, which in effect draws more - and not necessarily welcome - attention to the person and their special need.

In an earlier article I looked at how "person with a developmental disability," a label suggested by proponents of Person First Language, could apply to both my autistic son and his epileptic mother. This is another example of a situation in which clarity is sacrificed for the convention. My needs and experiences vary greatly from those of my son, and the label isn't terribly descriptive when applied to either of us because of the broad spectrum of differences for people with both types of disability. Perhaps the greater need is not to invent new labels for people who live with disabilities, but to give greater thought to when it is appropriate to discuss our disabilities at all.

Source:

Kathie Snow, "People First Language." Disability is Natural