1

Our article “ How to Write About Disability ” recommends that people with disabilities either be referred to as “disabled” or “with a disability.” Identity-first versus person-first depends on the individual community (e.g. Autistic community, Intellectual & Developmental Disability community).

This is what the community prefers over terms such as “special needs,” “physically/mentally challenged,” “r*tard(ed),” “diffability” and other euphemisms and wordings. This has been brought to the spotlight with the recent #SayTheWord hashtag, urging people to just say “disability.”

But a lot of our articles use terminology that many disabled people dislike. For example…

not a complete list

We even have 2 categories referring to children as having special needs.

WikiHow has switched to identity-first language for autistic people (no longer “people with autism”) based on the Autistic community preference. I wonder if we might be able to extend the same courtesy towards other people with disabilities.

This is the sort of undertaking I might quietly carry out on my own, but I’m a little more hesitant when it comes to moving articles, particularly well-established ones.

I’d love to hear thoughts from the community, both from general editors and admins who know the ins and outs of this stuff. What do you think?

2

I’m in full support of this. I would honestly rather tick off or upset a bunch of “regular” people with the fact that they need to change their search query, than tick off or upset a community of people by using language that’s considered offensive or upsetting.

Also, that last article you listed, Luna. Just… Wow. That article disgusts me. Having a child with a disability doesn’t mean that your life is ruined, but that article sure implies that. Wow.

3

If those referred to in these articles themselves do not like the term due to being euphemistic in nature, then why not not use them and be direct - Just the way it is and the way it does not hurt their sentiment?Also, the last article is talking about females. Im am wondering why? This article can be homogeneous in nature to cater to all the genders, I feel.

4

I’d love to hear thoughts from admins. @Anna , @Krystle , others, would you care to weigh in?

5

There’s definitely a fine line with some title change cases because in order to actually reach readers, we do have to use the terms they’re likely to look for, or any good advice shared under the topic will just not be read. But like Luna said, I also think it’s important to consider what the actual communities in question want, too, and I’m proud that we’ve been on the forefront of some of the changes there with some of our titles in the past.

The examples you brought up seem changeable to me.  One thing I like to do is check what folks are searching for, and in general “special needs” doesn’t seem to be on the tip of people’s tongues (or fingers!) more than disability does - see here . So that bodes well that these articles might actually reach more people if their titles were changed. 

On the other hand, one scenario where I could see still needing to use the older terminology, for example, is Special Education - that’s still used so pervasively in the school system that changing titles away from it would, I fear, really make people not be able to find the topics they’re looking for. I couldn’t even think of a good alternative term for it, really, but I tried a comparison here to show what I mean. 

So in short I’d say, I don’t see a problem with title changes within reason, particularly on titles like the Angel Child one - I’m sure the person meant well, but I can see (and agree with) your concerns with it! I’d just take it very case by case and be hesitant about moving anything that’s reaching and helping a lot of people already - if you have specific ones you’re not sure of, I’d be happy to have a look into them case by case and let you know what we see for views/helpfulness/etc in the database. Just shoot me a note if so and I’ll do some digging:slight_smile: