Words that are used in talking about disablity

 

What do we really mean when we say a person with complex needs?

So this starts with the question of what is the difference between complex needs, disability, and special needs. 

I honestly think it is the level of care that they need, so some disabled people with only specialist accommodation can live independently. These are people who may have become disabled later in life through an accident or an illness, or have been born with a disability however had parents invested in their development and understood what they needed to do to promote what independence the person could achieve.

Complex needs – can be a diverse term and its context is important as it’s not only used in the context of disability however having disabilities adds another level of complexity.  This explains it better than I could ever do.

Complex_Needs_IC_Syd_Dec12.pdf (unsw.edu.au)

Special needs are very different from the way disability is used. Disability is used more in physical context and for people who don’t have mental difficulties. Physical disability can generally refer to having one of the senses either completely taken away or reduced in a way that can’t be treated. So things like blindness, deafness, and limb differences. These people are generally aware of and are very accommodating of things such as closed captions and audio descriptions becoming more accessible.

Special needs - Wikipedia

I will expand on this further in later posts, however, this is just skimming the surface of the linguistics around disability and how they are used in the way we talk about disability.