There is a wide variety of disabilities and many different ways in how disabled people identify with their specific disability. In other words, the disability community is diverse, and not all people who identify as having a disability agree with how to think or talk about disability. Relay Resources believes in understanding and championing the diversity of our disability community for the benefit of those within it and outside of it. We talked to Relay Resources CEO Dr. Jennifer Camota Luebke about the different ways to think about disability and the variety of approaches in talking about and understanding disability diversity.
Relay Resources:
Hi Dr. Luebke, thank you for speaking with us today. Would you mind explaining to us what “disability diversity” is and why it’s important for people to understand?
Dr. Jennifer Camota-Luebke:
A common misconception is to think that the disability community is a unified community. Historically, non-disabled people made decisions around the architecture of buildings, city planning, language, systems, and processes. Disabled people were not part of the conversation, and so they were pushed out into the margins of society. As people with disabilities realized they did not belong in the non-disabled world, they gathered with other people who had similar disabilities. This group of people with varying disabilities became known as the “disabled community.”
So we’re talking about recognizing diversity and variety within the disability community itself?
Yes! The disabled community is not a monolith. There are many different types of disabled people with varying preferences on how they view themselves and the language used to describe them.
For instance, saying “people with disabilities” is like saying “Asians” to describe a group of people. There are currently 48 countries in Asia, grouped into six regions – Central, East, West, South, Southeast, and North. Tajikistan in Central Asia has a very different culture from Japan in East Asia, and from the Philippines in Southeast Asia. The same is true for people with disabilities. Losing mobility as an adult is very different from being born autistic. People who have cancer view their disability differently than being born Deaf. The person who lives with cancer may want to be healed, whereas the autistic person may consider their autism as a significant part of their identity, and not something to be healed from.
These disabilities also intersect with other concepts of one's identity, such as their race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or nationality.
An infographic showing the intersectionality of disability.
Got it. So what are the ways we could think about disability instead?
It’s helpful to think of the diversity of disability in these ways: Temporarily disabled vs. permanently disabled, and congenital disability vs. acquisition of a disability as a child vs. acquisition of a disability as an adult. Within some of these categories there are also several different disability diagnoses, including physical disability (such as a wheelchair user or someone with a limb difference), neurodivergence (such as ADHD or autism), nonapparent or undiagnosed disability, emotional or psychiatric disability (such as anxiety or depression), and sensory disability (such as deafness or blindness).
A broken leg is a temporary disability that affects mobility. Cerebral palsy is a permanent disability that can impact mobility and learning. One could acquire a spinal injury as an adult, and others might be born blind or Deaf or autistic. Each disabled person experiences and identifies with disability differently, which will influence their perspective. Often, the hardest transition can be for someone who was nondisabled and then develops a disability later on in life.
A graphic showing the different types of disability such as physical, neurodivergent, nonapparent, emotional and psychiatric, and sensory. Each column corresponds to their representative color on the disability pride flag.
Disabilities today also include categories you might not traditionally think of when it comes to the disabled community, such as mental health, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and even diabetes. These are health categories that are not “fixed” states, but ever evolving.
So how do you categorize someone without being disrespectful?
As mentioned in our blog post “How to Incorporate Inclusive Language,” there is a divide on how people in the disability community identify. Some prefer person-first language, while others prefer identity-first terminology. Research has shown that people who prefer identity-first language is growing and are now the majority, while people who prefer people-first language is declining. For people who are experiencing a (potentially) temporary disability like cancer, they might not see it as a part of their core identity, but rather a disability that they “live with” as in “living with cancer,” whereas someone with autism may consider it as part of their core identity and prefers to be called “autistic” instead of “a person with autism.”
How do we solve this problem?
Here are two questions to consider when thinking through diversity disability and what people with disabilities might need:
1. What kind of support does someone need? (Be aware, however, that depending on the disability of the person you’re asking, the question itself can still make them feel different.)
2. How do we change the system or the support structure itself—for example, to make it more universally designed and inclusive for everyone?
Thank you for your time and giving us some next steps to think through when it comes to expanding our view of the disability community.
Relay Resources offers employment and business solutions for and with people with disabilities. Learn more about what Relay Resources does here, along with how you can support inclusive workplaces or find employment.