News and commentary from the broader disability community

Image: Wikipedia Commons

5 Common Myths About Disability
Meriah Nicholls, 7 January 2017

I was late in joining the disability community (“island time” as they say in the Pacific), because in my family, the only “real” people with disabilities were people who use wheelchairs ...

Special needs, euphemisms, and disability
Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Biomed Central - On Health, 17 January 2017
A recently published study in 'Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 'finds the term ‘special needs’ to be an ineffective euphemism. In this blog, lead author of the study, Morton Ann Gernsbacher, discusses the findings, the interesting study design involving a set of vignettes and the societal impact of the term ‘special needs’ ...

Happy Ed Roberts Day!

David Perry, How Did We Get Into This Mess? 23 January 2017

A celebration of  Ed Roberts, a renowned US disability advocate.

Disability 

An archive of New York Times  columns - essays, art and opinion exploring the lives of people living with disabilities.

Want accurate data on people with disabilities? Ask them
Kim Bradford Smith and Dominic Haslam, The Guardian (UK), 26 January 2017
Globally, there is a staggering dearth of accurate and comparable data on disability. Censuses and other surveys have provided some general estimates, but the reality is that many governments and policymakers don’t have an accurate picture of how many people with disabilities live in their countries ...

Special needs, euphemisms, and disability
Morton Ann Gernsbacher , BioMed Central - On Health, 17 January 2017
A recently published study in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications finds the term ‘special needs’ to be an ineffective euphemism. In this blog, lead author of the study, Morton Ann Gernsbacher, discusses the findings, the interesting study design involving a set of vignettes and the societal impact of the term ‘special needs’ ...