Disabled Persons. Disability.
Wrong terms.
Differently Abled. Diverse Abilities. Diversability.
Right terms.
Each and all of our different abilities add value somewhere, to someone(s).
Abilities exist within a context. For example…
Diverse Abilities – Detail Orientation
Chad Hahn, software designer, used to outsource work to India, until his wife, a social worker, convinced him that autistic adults had special diverse abilities, that make them ideal code inspectors. People with autism can zoom in on details. This laser focus makes high-functioning autistic adults, very good at finding and fixing coding errors.
Diverse abilities
Diversability
Diverse Abilities – Patience
If you think patience is indeed a virtue, you may want to meet Erin Kelly of The Good Men Project. Living life with Cerebral Palsy, Erin has learned the art of patience. She, a person of diverse abilities, passes along an important lesson to people who live without Cerebral Palsy.
There’s a certain level of patience required when dealing with a disability. However, I think there’s certain kind of serenity in that. It’s a subtle reminder to slow down, soak in your surroundings, and take things as they come. Everything around you may become a mental test, but if you don’t have patience and discipline when you step inside that world (or any arena in which tests you) anger, self-pity, and resentment will eat away at your very soul.
Diverse Abilities – Sounds and Sights
People who lose, or are born with deficits in any of the five sensory areas, have been known to develop keen and beyond normal abilities, in one or more of the in-tact areas.
Loss of Sight, Wonders of Sound
Stevie Wonder, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Andrea Bocelli
Soundless Wonders
Lon Chaney, who starred as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, was raised by deaf parents and became a notable actor of the silent film era.
Sue Thomas, was the first deaf person to work as an undercover investigator doing lip-reading of suspects for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Diverse Abilities – Autism: A pictured language
Temple Grandin is autistic. Her spoken language skills were “delayed” while, or perhaps because, she was thinking in pictures and other sensory information. In this way, her thought process is more akin to animals than to humans. Her diverse abilities also enable her to be one of the world’s leading experts on animal behavior. More specifically she designs kinder containment systems for animals on their way to being vaccinated or slaughtered. She understands what terrifies them and designs systems that eliminate these fear factors. Grandin can do this work because she looks at and feels the system through animal eyes, minds and body sensations.
I could listen to Grandin for hours as she describes how the human mind works. Her explanations are brilliant and simple because she thinks in pictures and has learned to use language to describe what she sees. Take a few minutes and give a listen.
You’ve just read why I’m trading in the term disability for diverseability.
Care to join me?