The Ablism: Impairment, Disability, Handicap
The Ablism: Impairment, Disability, Handicap

Summary/Abstract: Disabled people are still subjected to attitudinal, economic, environmental, and institutional barriers despite the huge efforts of the international community to free them from dependency, exclusion, isolation, and segregation. This paper reviews the prejudice-, discrimination-, and stereotype-related terms ending in -ism or -phobia referring to individuals’ physical and psychical disabilities, and distinguishes between impairment, disability (both visible and invisible) and handicap, in an attempt to explain the passage from handicap/ handicapped to disability/ disabled. It also provides guidelines regarding what to use and what to avoid when speaking/ writing about people with disabilities, as well as dos & don’ts when dealing with disabled people. Overall, this paper is meant to be food for thought for social workers working with people with disabilities.

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