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Words are like a blade:
they can hurt and they can heal
According to decorated athlete, actress, model, and spokeswoman, Aimee Mullins, a 1980s thesaurus entry on "disabled" included words such as helpless, useless, wrecked, mangled, lame, mutilated, and impotent. The antonyms were healthy, strong, and capable.
Those words were particularly salient for Aimee; her legs were amputated when she was a young child and the 1980s defined her formative years.
In late 2009, Aimee addressed a TED MED conference session, and received a standing ovation for her powerful presentation. It goes deeper than the traditional "feel good" approach to looking beyond a person's disability. She tells the medical audience,
"The existing model of only looking at what is broken in you and how do we fix it serves to be more disabling to the individual than the pathology itself. By not acknowledging their potency, we are creating another ill on top of what natural struggle they might have...[rather,] look into the range of human capability."
For Aimee, the perceived adversity that she has faced has made her more adaptable and capable. She questions whether she'd relinquish her prosthetic legs for flesh and bone, because they have helped her realize her full potential. She goes on to argue,
"Adaption is our greatest human skill. Perhaps until we are tested we don't know what we're made of. Adversity gives us a sense of self."
There are a number of lessons from within her presentation that can be applied to the importance of establishing and maintaining a disability-friendly workplace.
Listen closely toward the end of her presentation in which she cites a case study of school children whose grades were swapped and the incredible outcomes.
