Disability Labeling

I believe that disability labeling can be both beneficial and detrimental. I think that the practice of labeling should be at the discretion of each individual. Personally, I consider the cons to outweigh the pros. For medical purposes, I think that labels allow us to better understand our overall functioning, however, this position comes at a cost. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stigma in society surrounding disability. One consequence of this is that people often only see the diagnosis, not the person. In addition, diagnostic labels can potentially mislead understanding of the cause of disability. In this sense, factors such as poor parenting, low scaffolding in the classroom, etc. may not be considered. Overall, I
think that the practice of labels should only be continued for medical purposes. However, our culture needs to become more educated on avoiding stigma and fast conclusions.