Glossary of Disability Terms
A Glossary of Disability Terms
Accessible Congregation: A congregation that values persons as individuals and removes barriers that might exclude people with disabilities from active participation in the life of the church. These include the barriers of attitude, communication, architecture, air quality or anything that prevents them from worship, service, leadership, study or socialization.
Affective: Used to refer to emotions and attitudes.
Curriculum: Covers the subject matter to be learned as well as what is learned from the total environment. For churches, in addition to Bible studies and classroom activities the curriculum includes the total environment of the church, the safety of the place, the acceptance and/or love felt there, and the social comfort of a person’s small group. Functional curriculum is usually taught in a community setting and tries to help a student develop and use skills in a real life.
Disability: A physical, sensory, cognitive or other impairment that causes a person to need extra help in education and other life activities. Government definitions differ according to application.
Handicap: A demeaning term no longer used.
Impairment: The actual physical or cognitive or emotional issue that means a person needs extra help in some areas of life.
In-home interventions: Special education services delivered in home for children with severe cognitive impairments or those who have significant behavioral issues.
Intellectual Disabilities: The much preferred term to replace the term mental retardation.
Special Needs: The term is dynamic and is defined educationally in each state. The term indicates a need for getting services for persons with impairments of various kinds. It is not a label but a category that includes broader interpretation than disabilities. The term is used in adoption records and government emergency planning, for example, FEMA, and in city emergency planning designs.
Story Board: A board or paper containing picture cues for actions. Primarily used with persons having low or no language skills.
Total Communication: A teaching strategy that can be used with persons with severe hearing loss that consists of both speaking to them and using sign language. This insures stimulation, and even if they do not learn to speak, they feel comfortable with speech reading.