I know I have a tendancy to over react so can you tell me please if

[2spells]

you would describe a person who has downs syndrome as being mentally disabled.
I felt no and so did ds but am now wondering if as usual I have got it wrong. thanks (2shoes)

I wouldn't. Don't have an SN child myself but think that phrase has been seen as a Bad Thing for a long, long time. Patronising, over-simplistic, reducing people to labels, etc. etc. etc.

Although tbh 'learning difficultlies' always made me want to heave. The idea that e.g. autism is just a minor difficulty seemed completely ridiculous. Now the current phrase seems to be learning disability.

I don't like it no. But not everyone is familiar with 'acceptable' terminology. TBH it's a bloody minefield.

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i think I shouldn't have put describes as if i was describing dd I would talk about her hair, smile and stuff like that not her cp. so describe is most likely the wrong word. but I wondered about the mentally disabled.part.

I wouldn't use the words mentally disabled.
I mean dd's cp is caused by brain damage but she is not mentally disabled. it just sounds so wrong.

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It is used in the medical literature a lot because to be honest it is a reasonably good description, techically. I wouldn't use it in normal life though.

MotherFunk what is wrong with special needs?

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My dd hates 'special'. She says special means different and she doesn't like to be different.

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Use the term you feel comfortable with but be polite to people who just have different words which aren't nastily meant.

If you took out a dictionary I suppose downs is a mental disability and no legs would be a physical disability. The other case one could use though would be it is not disabling, just different.

Special needs has led to the term "special" being used as an abusive term by many who shouldn't do it which is a shame. When my father was working with downs children in the 1960s I think they tended to use the word "mentally handicapped". In general words are words and what becomes unacceptable should be avoided but some people find it hard to lose track. Look at the problems over coloured, black, etc and how that has changed over the last 100 years.

Xenia you have a point, what ever turn of phrase we use someone will be offended. It is a total mine field. I have deep objections to dd being called brain damaged. (daft as she is.) I think it is just because I just want people to see the child/person first and then the disability.

I know. It's difficult, a minefield. I remember reading about a totally deaf couple who were ensuring 100% their child would be deaf because that was better than hearing, that they were simpler different not worse. Interesting argument. Obviously it is more difficult in life if you are deaf, though. Can I say deaf or do I have to use some other term like aurally challenged or something or aurally different?

When I'm publicly speaking sometimes I hear myself say black and white when talking about some issue being clear and then worry someone black in the audience won't like that phrase or may be it's another one - blacklisting things perhaps as if black were bad.

Is it the 'disability' part; or the 'mental disability' that you're not sure about?

I don't mind learning disability per se (there are so many worse labels being banded about to describe people with disabilties sadly), but I'm not too fond of the term 'mentally disabled. I prefer learning difficulties or learning disability.
Mentally disabled makes me think of mentally handicapped - and that seems to somehow be out of the 1970s .

It is a complete minefield though, especially as the language used changes over time. I loathe seeing medical journals that still refer to severe retardation for example, that makes me really sad.

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2spells -any chance I can join TTR please?

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apparently using learning disabled isnt very PC either, have no idea why (?) as I dont find it offensive at all

I think xenia is right, if it isnt used in a nasty or derogatory way then it isnt an awful problem....

Yes, but coloured was the polite word to use about 40 years ago if you were right on and PC and a lot of Indians don't like being called black for example. Certainly today black is the right term even if the skin is brown not black. In my other's diary in the 1960s when she had a downs child who died, she wrote about her having a chromosomal abnormality and didn't use the word down's syndrome although I was used then. "Blacklist" for something wrong (white being "right" in that context) is not very PC. I try not to use it.

Old medical literature using the language of the time is interesting bringing to mind the current arguments over selling woks with old language in them like the bible which is pretty sexist in parts and anti-gay and that Tin Tin book.

but if you said someone had severe or moderate learning difficulties then it would indicate they had alot of trouble with 'learning'

i am white and find 'coloured' offensive yet my black friend doesnt, she thinks its fine!

MotherFunk my dd can't walk, feed herself, talk...I refer to her as having a learning disability or learning difficulties. How else should I describe her condition? I also use the terms SLD and PMLD (she's on the cusp between the two).

It's when you're writing things for publication etc you need to be even more careful to keep up to date with current language. It's difficult but worth getting right.

Presumably disabled is fine. It's the name of the legislation isn't it and the COmmission - Disability Discrimination and yet most of those people aren't "disabled" in the dictionary sense which presumably means cannot do anything.