- From: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2023 21:42:01 -0500
- To: Adam Cooper <cooperad@bigpond.com>
- Cc: wai-eo-editors@w3.org
Hello Adam, Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The W3C WAI Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) is very interested in disability-related language -- and considers it not minor. EOWG often provides such guidance for the rest of W3C, so it is good that you brought it to EOWG. I opened an issue on GitHub to collect additional input, and EOWG will discuss it in an upcoming meeting(s). We welcome additional input -- including specific references to WHO and UN documents -- in: https://github.com/w3c/wai-intro-accessibility/issues/78 Best, ~Shawn <www.w3.org/People/Shawn> On 31-May-23 3:25 AM, Adam Cooper wrote: > [Hello, > > It’s a minor thing, but … > > There is a longstanding custom in English-language disability discourse, especially in the U.S. it seems, to describe the experience of people with vision loss as having a ‘visual disability’ or ‘visual impairment’. > > The word ‘visual’ is about what is seen as in ‘visual art’. > > The word ‘vision’ is about seeing rather than what is seen as in ‘envisioning’. > > to say something is ’visually impaired’, therefore, is tantamount to saying the appearance of that thing is itself impaired. > > The phrase ‘vision impairment’ rather than ‘visually impaired’ or ‘visual disability’ is used by the World Health Organisation in the International Classification framework of Functioning, Disability, and Health, and by the U.N. more broadly. > > It is also used by Australia’s peak blind and low vision service provider, Vision Australia, for precisely this reason. > > Does the W3 and particularly WAI have a position on the disability-related language it uses in drafting specifications? > > Cheers, > > Adam > > ] >
Received on Friday, 2 June 2023 02:42:05 UTC