Are Outside Consultants Impairing Aviation?

The word impairment is defined on www.dictionary.com as "the state of being diminished, weakened, or damaged, especially mentally or physically". Ouch, is that me? I was recently in Cologne, Germany at the 2016 Passenger Terminal Expo which is a premiere event for airlines, airports and their vendors. They had a conference track that focused on older adults and people with disabilities. The title, however, was "Aging Populations and PRM's" (PRM is person/people with reduced mobility, in European aviation PRM usually encompasses all disabilities). I attended this conference track listening to different industry professionals, and a few advocates, talking about PRM's and consistently focusing on our "impairments". We sometimes use words to make a point more emphatically, so I tried to brush off continued use of the word "impairment". That was until there was a gentlemen from a company that conducts trainings for employees within some of the world's largest air carriers and during his presentation, he repeatedly said the word "impairment". He even showed a video that flashed the word "impairment" a thousand times, then suddenly it hit me. The reason I have spent the day listening to people use the word "impairment" is not because of a language or translation problem, but because the person doing the training didn't understand the reason we do not use the word "impairment". Language is extremely important in understanding accessibility. The reason we do not use the word is because the definition is very derogatory (see above) and also because words have great meaning. The Howard Stern Show has "speech impediment man" because it sounds funny and entertaining, not because they are directing praise or showing achievement in his life. We must choose those words wisely when we are training the staff and crew that run airlines globally. The disability community is especially interested in proper language because language can be seen as a determinate to someone's knowledge and understanding about accessibility and the challenges. The commonly accepted language is constantly in flux but that is only to make people feel more comfortable and respected. Corporations and governments need to reach out to the disability community before they go hire some Joe Shmo trainer, oops, I mean professional trainers.