Disability Faux Pas

On my last Blog post about removing barriers from your home, my friend Wally Dutcher pointed out that I had made some disability blunders.  My description of my client refered to her as "wheelchair bound".  Wally uses a wheelchair and reminded me that he is not "bound" to his wheelchair, he "uses" his wheel chair.  If he were bound he would have to be untied before he went to bed.  So simple, and yet so commonly forgotten.
He sent me this website and I thought it was such good information on how best to speak with and speak about people with disabilities.

I generally do not interact with the patrons who are disabled that will be using the facilities that I review and inspect or sometimes the one's that I design.  I am most of the time assisting the general contractor, architect or building owner.  And most of the time the same people that I interact with are the same who make the same mistakes as I do.  So it's a vicious cycle of unintended mis-statements.  In an effort to be more sensitive to our friends who are disabled, here is an interesting table that I found on one of the websites that Wally sent.