“Disability is not something individuals have. What individuals have are impairments. They may be physical, sensory, neurological, psychiatric, intellectual or other impairments… Disability is the process which happens when one group of people create barriers by designing a world only for their way of living, taking no account of the impairments other people have…”^{1  Minister for Disability Issues. (2001). New Zealand Disability Strategy. Wellington: Ministry of Health}  

There are five categories of disability:

Sensory

• • Hearing (people with a hearing disability have difficulty hearing or cannot hear in a conversation with one other person and/or hold a conversation with at least three other people)
  • Seeing (people with a seeing disability have difficulty seeing or cannot see ordinary newsprint and/or the face of someone from across the room, even when wearing corrective lenses)

• Physical

• • Mobility (people with a mobility disability have difficulty with or cannot walk distances, walk up or down a flight of stairs, carry objects, move from room to room or stand for long periods)
  • Agility (people with an agility disability have difficulty with or are unable to bend, dress, grasp, reach, cut their own toe-nails, cut their own food, get themselves in or out of bed)

• Intellectual

• • People with an intellectual disability need support from organisations like IHC or People First, or have been to a special school or have received a special education because of an intellectual impairment

• Psychiatric / Psychological

• • This includes people who, because of long-term emotional, psychological or psychiatric condition, have difficulty with or are unable to communicate, socialise or participate in everyday activities that people their age can usually do

• Other

• People with ‘other’ disabilities have long-term conditions or health problems that cause ongoing difficulty with their ability to learn or remember, or cause difficulty with or stop them participating in everyday activities that other people their age can normally do, including difficulty speaking or being understood (where the disability is not classified as physical, sensory, intellectual or psychiatric/psychological).  http://www.ssc.govt.nz/node/1671#P32_2785

  Where does this word ‘disability’ come from? The first recorded this word appeared in 1570-80. There was another word ‘handicap’ and it was recorded in 15th-16th Century….

  The earliest use of the word ‘handicap’  can be found in Oxford English Dictionary and the definition for this use is this:”The name of a kind of sport having an element of chance in it, in which one person challenged some article belonging to another, for which he offered something of his own in exchanged.” It was dated in 1653 and it was basically about games – trading game like a barter/betting game involving two traders/people and an umpire or matchmaker. The first word was ‘hand-in-cap’, then ‘hand-i-cap’ and ended with ‘handicap’ in 1915.

Now looking at the word ‘Deaf’

Where does deaf (adj) come from? It was from the old English deaf mean ‘lacking the sense of hearing”. The middle English before 900, the word was deef

“empty, barren,” from Proto-Germanic *daubaz (source also of Old Saxon dof, Old Norse daufr, Old Frisian daf, Dutch doof “deaf,” German taub, Gothic daufs “deaf, insensate”), from PIE dheubh-, which was used to form words meaning “confusion, stupefaction, dizziness” (source also of Greek typhlos “blind,” typhein “to make smoke;” Old English dumb “unable to speak;” Old High German tumb).

The word was pronounced to rhyme with reef until 18c. Meaning “refusing to listen or hear” is from c. 1200. As a noun, “deaf persons,” from c. 1200. Deaf-mute is from 1837, after French sourd-muet. Deaf-mutes were sought after in 18c.-19c. Britain as fortune-tellers. Deaf as an adder (Old English) is from Psalms lviii.5. https://www.etymonline.com

The earliest word for sign language in Greek was ‘enneuo’ which means to nod at – communicate by gesture (making signs). It found in the Greek Dictionary of the New Testament, James Strong, S.T.D., LL.D.

What about word ‘disabled’? Many Deaf people know this one and they hated using this word either. Let have another look at the meaning of disabled