Browse categories below or look up a specific term here.
Join the fight to end violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability by engaging with the Disability Royal Commission.
Disability Royal Commission hearings sometimes use terms that most Australians aren’t very familiar with. We’re keeping a list of these and trying to explain them in plain language. Please feel free to email us at comms@pwd.org.au if you have suggestions for words that should be included.
We’ve organised the terms by category below, and you can use the search function to find something specific. You can also click here to view these articles as a single-page index.
Important note: This Jargon Buster is here to help you understand the less common words and phrases people use during the Disability Royal Commission hearings. Some of the terms defined here are used by people with disability to talk about ourselves, but others are mostly used by other people to talk about us. Some are euphemistic, and some frame people with disability as a problem to be solved, rather than focussing on the system which fails to support us. People with disability also don’t always have the same preferences about the terms we use to describe ourselves. PWDA does not endorse the use of every term on these lists. In some cases, we have noted alternative terms that may be better to use in a disability rights context.
Browse categories below or look up a specific term here.