How to Interact with People with Disabilities

Respect 

Do not raise your voice or use a paternalistic tone to us as we can understand you. Please talk with us like anyone else.

Contributions

We can work, lead organizations, be parents, and serve as great friends within our community. Please do not marginalize us from participating fully in our lives as we can contribute to society as well.

Judgment

We may talk differently, move slowly, or have visible disabilities.  Please do not judge us from afar.  

Pity

In most cases, people with disabilities despise when you express or show pity.  Just because we are "different" (whatever that means!) does not mean that we are unhappy.

Patience

Please wait for us.  Do not finish our sentences as we may speak slower than you.  Do not use your horn when we drive differently than you.  And do not complain in the supermarket line when we unload our cart more slowly than you.  We need to try things at our own pace.

Involvement

We desperately want to be included in conversations.  Please do not ask someone else how we are doing when we are standing right there.  Ask us the question yourself.  I encourage everyone not to look past (or through) a disabled person. 

Assistance

Do you want to help us?  Offer to do something specific, such as driving, cooking, folding laundry, cleaning, mowing the yard, doing dishes, raking leaves, or wrapping presents.  There are many ways that you can easily assist us!