In the US disability is the ideological term referring to abnormal,
oppression, and/or discrimination depending on one's variation of the
disability paradigm. In the US disability can be (but is not necessarily)
a positive experience while impairment is tied to the medical model.
In the US we emphasize that EVERYONE will someday be disabled if not
already.
In the UK, as I hear and read, impairment is the parallel term to our
term disability. And disability, as I hear and read people in the UK, can
never be a positive experience and only happens to some of the population.
I have thought of using impairment in my writing, but being a Yank -
though published in two disability related journals in the UK - I have
resisted.
David Pfeiffer
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