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Reluctance to be seen as 'disabled'

Disability as a legal concept
Disability in a broader sense
I'm not 'disabled' because...

Disability as a legal concept

Some people who stammer may be turned off using the DDA because they do not want to be seen as "disabled".

The first point to make here is that 'disability' in the DDA is a legal concept. It is just a matter of whether you fulfil a particular legal definition. It is not a question of whether you or anyone else would consider you disabled in a broader sense.

Arguably a 'disability' within the DDA goes well beyond what many people would regard as the normal sense of the word. For example it can include a back problem if it lasts for more than a year. It is just a statutory definition to determine who does and who doesn't have rights under the DDA.

If you think about it this way you may be happy to rely on the DDA whether you think of yourself as disabled in a broader sense or not. However to rely on the DDA you do still have to say you are "disabled" within the meaning of the statute. That's just the way it is.

Disability in a broader sense

Like many people, I don't like the word "disabled". It can have connotations such as powerlessness, incapability, and being "different".

However we need to remember that this is an issue for disabled people generally. Disabled people in general are unhappy with these implications. People who stammer can, as part of the wider disability movement, work to have society move beyond stereotypic views of 'disability'. 'Stammering' itself may have have similar negative connotations. It seems artificial for people who stammer to try and distance their own condition and its negative stereotypes from disability issues in general.

Disability awareness has some way to go but I think it is growing - for example through the work of the Disability Rights Commission, and through employers and staff learning more about disability to comply with the DDA. The word 'disabled' is not a happy one, but I would hope that through greater awareness and familiarity society can start to see it as quite different from the sum of its parts - "dis-abled". It is at best highly misleading to generalise disabled people as 'unable' or 'less able'.

"I see stammering as a disability because people may judge you on it - it can affect how they see you; and also because it does get in the way. If we say: "I'm not disabled, I'm perfectly able", what does that say about how we view other 'disabled people'?"
Christine

A more empowering view of disability - and one often supported by disability organisations - is the social model. This emphasises disability as something created by the physical, organisational and attitudinal structure of society. One might argue that wheelchair users could get about perfectly well if only society had not designed so many of its buildings with stairs as the main way of getting up and down. With adequate lifts and ramps in buildings, and improved design of buses and trains etc, wheelchair users need not be disabled. They may have an "impairment" in being unable to walk, but it is the stairs and general lack of consideration for their requirements that "disable" them and perhaps limit their playing a full role in society. An important role of the DDA and campaigning orgainisations is to "enable" disabled people through encouraging new structures and attitudes.

Similarly people who stammer may be 'disabled' by people's attitudes towards stammering - eg by a listener's impatience, or his making a stereotypical assumption that the person is slow-thinking. A person who stammers may also be disabled by arrangements to access a particular service, eg if he has to phone up to get it. In the social model, stammering is not a 'disability' (it is an 'impairment'), but people who stammer can be 'disabled' by attitudes and structures. Through the DDA and other means, one tries to remove such disabling factors.

On the social model, a person may be 'disabled' however able he or she is, and even if his or her stammer is only minor. For example, if you are turned down for a job because of a mild stammer, you are still being "disabled" by the employer's attitude to you as a person who stammers.

I'm not 'disabled' because...

There are various reasons why some people who stammer seem unwilling to see themselves as disabled. Whether a person who stammers chooses to view themselves as 'disabled' is a matter for the individual - though I would ask a person who does not see themselves as disabled to check whether or not that is based on any stereotypical views they may have of other 'disabled people'. But different people have different views. For example I understand that a significant proportion of deaf people do not consider themselves 'disabled'. What I want to do now though is run through some of the reasons, often interlinked, which people who stammer give for not being 'disabled' and outline some counter-arguments.

1. "I'm normal"

I certainly didn't used to see myself as disabled. I was just a normal person who had difficulty getting my words out. Disabled people were 'different' from normal. When I started thinking about it more, though, I realised that people with other disabilities - wheelchair users, blind people etc - are basically normal people too, just with a particular impairment. Many of them would not want to be considered 'different' either. They would prefer to see themselves as a normal person who cannnot walk, see or hear etc.

This kind of 'them' and 'us' thinking - often unrealised - is the foundation for much discrimination. In a way it is rather insulting to disabled people not to want to be seen as 'disabled' on this ground.

(Paradoxically, much as I wanted to see myself as 'normal', a very healing experience for me was to realise in a personal development course that I had viewed myself as fundamentally different from other people because of my stammer; whereas really I had similar issues to any other human being. Eg there are perfectly fluent people who may uncomfortable at parties and tend to stand by the wall, reluctant to join groups. More...)

2. Negative connotations

Some people who stammer may object to being seen as 'disabled' because they believe this is saying there is something wrong with them, or that they are somehow 'lesser' than other people or deserving of sympathy, or more generally that they will be tarred by negative connotations of the term. 'Disability' is not normally seen as a positive concept. 'Dis-abled' sounds like the opposite of 'able'. And there are doubtless still negative stereotypes which many people associate with the word.

I can certainly see this argument. However, disabled people in general are unhappy with these negative connotations. People who stammer are no different in this respect. 'Disability' is not a great term but it is the term we are stuck with for the time being. The DDA and disability organisations are working to overcome these negative attitudes of society. People who stammer face similar problems of negative stereotypes of 'stammering', and our efforts to correct these must surely be seen as just a part of the efforts of people with long-term conditions (disabilities) to overcome negative stereotyping.

3. "I'm perfectly able"

For example a person who stammers may say: "I can communicate perfectly well - it just takes a little longer sometimes and you need to be willing to stick with it and listen. Any so-called disability I have is due to your attitude that there is anything wrong with what is happening here."

But again people with other 'disabilities' could say they are perfectly able, they often just have difficulty in a particular area. With approprite infrastructure a person in a wheelchair, for example, may well live a fuller life than do many people who stammer. Being 'disabled' does not need to mean you can't do things or lead a full life.

Also under the social model people who stammer may be disabled by other people's attitudes to their stammer, however able the person who stammers may be, and however minor the stammer.

4. "Only people with quite a severe stammer are genuinely 'disabled' by it"

Another view is: "Well some people who stammer are genuinely disabled by their speech - with me it maybe just takes me somewhat longer to ask for something in a shop."

This is a possible view of disability, and perhaps a widely held one. However I would refer again to what I say in 3 above. Having a full life is perfectly consistent with having a disability. Maybe this view is based on an unduly limited view of what disabled people generally may be able to do.

And again under the social model, you do not need a severe stammer to face disabling attitudes from people.

5. "It limits me to see myself as disabled"

Some people seem to say that viewing themselves as 'disabled' would encourage them to hold back from going out and living a full life.

I would very much encourage people not to see themselves as defined by their stammer, or by being 'disabled'. I'm not saying this is easy to do - it can be very tough having a stammer! - nor that it is something people 'ought' to do. On the other hand I do believe that, to an extent, how far your stammer limits you does depend on your own attitude. You can go out into speaking situations and talk, stammer or not, or you can decide not to do that (Limiting ourselves...).

Whatever attitude you choose to have though, seeing yourself as 'disabled' does not mean you have to use your stammer as an excuse not to do things. It only tends to do that if you buy into the old negative stereotypes of disability. And we do not need to do that.

Links

Stuttering as a disability - the controversy, by Mark Irwin, Chair of the International Stuttering Association. The Association debated the issue and confirmed that it recognises stuttering as a disability (2005).
Public authorities to have greater duties in future - this 2004 DDA article on the BSA website includes some pros and cons of viewing stammering as a disability.
A self-advocacy course at the City Lit in London in 2000 included issues of the social model, perceptions of difference etc in relation to stammering. About the course, see particularly Self advocacy for people who stammer and On being your own person.
A social model of stammering - stammering in the light of developments within the disability movement and sociology (2000) - from the website of the Special Interest Group Disorders of Fluency

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