What is People First Language?
1.
A type of speech intended to separate the disability from the person. It has become well accepted by non-disabled people who try to advocate for the disabled, but beyond that has numerous flaws. Disabled and particularly autistic people have complained that it treats the disability like something too terrible to be mentioned, something unimportant, or something that can be easily separated from the person. The awkward phrasing also has the tendency to bring out the disability.
In some cases, this form is grammatically correct, if the name of the disability cannot be transformed into an adjective. An often used example is "child with Down's Syndrome" instead of "Down's Syndrome child". No attempt can change Down's Syndrome, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, etc. into an adjective.
I am autistic, not a person with autism. I could use people first language by calling myself a person with femaleness. Everyone would think it odd, but my gender is less essential to who I am than my neurological configuration.
See
2.
The practice of using care in language when talking about people with disabilities. For example, one would say "child with a disability" versus "disabled child." This puts the person first and emphasizes the person instead of the disability.
"Person with autism," not "autistic person."
3.
"Politically correct" terms for things such as retard, dumbass, shit for brains, etc. Instead of retard, it's mentally challenged and instead of fat motherfucker it's calorie-intake impaired or something ridiculous like that.
Jimmy the retard: "I'm a sucky retarded piece of monkey shit."
Politically Correct Pussy that can't handle the truth: "No Jim, rather than saying that, tell people that you are a piece of monkey shit who sucks, and is retarded."
