OK, first, let's agree: It would be so lovely if labels to
describe our kids didn't exist. But the terms aren't going away.
Next! What's the best way to describe those with cognitive
impairment? Plenty of people still use the term "mentally
retarded," including medical professionals and even parents of
kids with special needs. After my video Would You Call My Child
A Retard? came out, I got into arguments with parents who
insisted that "mentally retarded" is the correct terminology
because, after all, their children are "mentally retarded."
There's a reason the U.S. government has stricken the term from
federal laws, and that the country's largest national
organization advocating for people with intellectual
disabilities, the ARC, morphed from Association for Retarded
Citizens to The Arc: For People with intellectual and
developmental disabilities. As the site explains, "As the words
'retardation' and 'retarded' became pejorative, derogatory and
demeaning in usage, the organization changed its name. Now the f