Audience: With whom do you interact?

- Not all people with disabilities are the same or are dealing with the same situation and prognosis. People come to have disabilities differently, and those disabilities themselves operate differently. There are two ways in which people find themselves having a disability and this needs to be acknowledged in order to appreciate the impact that our words can have on the recipient. The two ways are congenital where a person has had their disability since birth and acquired, meaning that the disability has developed or been obtained as a result of something such as an accident or illness. Another point here is to note that disabilities have two states, stable and progressive. A stable impairment is consistent. A progressive impairment is one where the impairment will change or become more severe as time goes on. We must consider the impact of this. A person with a progressive impairment knows that their impairment will change, so they could be waiting for the inevitable. Additionally, they might actually wake up today with less function than they had yesterday. This is important to recognize because it will influence how a person relates to the wider world. For example, somebody such as myself who has lived with their impairment for their whole lives or at least as long as they can remember, will have no reference point to what is typical. Therefore, they might well not be able to explain their differences or challenges, as they are likely to have no appreciation for what they are. This is particularly relevant for those who are not neurotypical because often, their difference is internal, not visual, and as a result, significantly more difficult for them to rationalize in which instance, a question such as "What do you need?" might not be helpful as they possibly do not know the answer. A more appropriate question could be, "What are you feeling?" Or, "What is making this difficult for you?" In contrast, those with the acquired disabilities do have a comparison to how life once was, how people spoke to them, how people treated them, what was expected of them and indeed what was accepted from them. As a result, they often appreciate the difficulties face navigating the workplace and wider world and potentially the injustices that they are now experiencing. This increased awareness could make them more reactive to insensitive or inappropriate comments because they are dealing with a different set of emotions. They could still be mourning the loss of their former situation, processing the trauma of the experience that got them to this new state, adapting to the new community that they are inevitably now a part of, or dealing with a sense of identity loss as they try to navigate their new circumstances, and they could well be a feeling of resentment, of the unfairness that they now experience. This often means that those with congenital disabilities are more accepting of poor treatment, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable. Asking a visually impaired individual, "What can you see?" Could be met with a response of, "I don't know. What can you see?" Because if they've always been visually impaired, then they don't know what they can't see. Or this question could equally likely be met with an answer fueled by aggression or sadness because the individual is instantly reminded of what they have lost. Now, we won't necessarily have this information about a person, but the point is that you need to know that it exists. Always be aware of who you are speaking to and how your words might affect them.