Disability Services

For Faculty - Strategies for Interacting with People with Disabilities

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General considerations:

• Do not assume a person with a disability needs your help. Ask before doing.
• If assistance is offered and the person declines, do not insist. If the person accepts, ask how best to help and follow directions.
• When introduced, offer to shake hands. People with limited hand use or artificial limbs can usually shake hands. It is an acceptable greeting to use the left hand for shaking.
• Avoid patronizing a person who uses a wheelchair by patting her on the shoulder or touching her head. Never place your hands on a person’s wheelchair, as the chair is a part of the body space of the user. 
• Keep in mind that wheelchairs, including motorized chairs, are not toys. References to the user that a chair’s use “looks like fun” or that he or she is “speedy” or a “race car driver” are inappropriate.
• If possible, sit down when speaking with a person who uses a wheelchair so that you are at his or her eye level.
• Relax. Don’t be embarrassed to use common expressions that seem to draw attention to a disability. It is appropriate to ask a person in a wheelchair to go for a walk or to ask a blind person if she sees what you mean.
• When talking with a person with a speech impairment, listen attentively, ask short questions that require short answers, avoid correcting, and repeat what you understand if uncertain.
• When first meeting a person who is blind, identify yourself and any others with you.
• When speaking with a person with a hearing impairment, look directly at the person and speak slowly. Avoid placing your hand in front of your mouth and do not feel that you have to exaggerate your mouth movements.
• To get the attention of a person with a hearing impairment, tap the person on the shoulder or wave your hand.
• Treat adults as adults. Call a person by his/her first name only when extending this familiarity to everyone present.
• When a student uses a service animal, remember that it is a working animal rather than a pet. It should be left alone unless the student states otherwise. 

Appropriate language:

• People with disabilities are people first. The Americans with Disabilities Act officially changed the way to refer to people with disabilities. The person first, then the disability. For example, say “student with a hearing impairment” rather than “hearing impaired student.” 
• The word “handicapped” is not appropriate when referring to a person with a disability. A handicap is a barrier or obstacle to a student’s performance of an objective.
• Avoid labeling people as victims or sufferers. Say, “a person with polio,” rather than “a polio victim.”
• Avoid the term “wheelchair bound.” Most people who use wheelchairs consider them liberating rather than confining.
• When it is appropriate to refer to an individual’s disability, choose the correct terminology for the specific disability. For example, rather than “spastic,” “crazy,” “deformed,” or “crippled,” use “person with a seizure disorder, mental illness, spina bifida, or quadriplegia.”
• In most cases, if you are unsure of what to do or say, ask the person with the disability. He or she is the most knowledgeable about what is comfortable and appropriate.