Spread the word day for 2026: 4 March
Shouldn't we support efforts to abandon hurtful language?
Welcome to 4 March 2025! Welcome to the day devoted to promoting inclusion over hate and divisiveness.
Today is the celebration of Spread the Word’s campaign to…well…spread the word about acceptance, inclusion, and appreciation of individuals with disabilities, including but not limited to intellectual disabilities. Specifically, the campaign was started in 2009 to end the use of “the R word.”
Special Education Today strongly supports efforts to eliminate bullying, inconsiderate and disrespectful language, devaluing, and inhumane treatment of individuals with disabilities and to promote opportunities to participate in educational, social, economic, and political aspects of life Earthwide. Therefore, I encourage Dear Readers to remember this effort pretty much every dang day, but today to make an effort to help others remember, too.
The “R-word” was once used in legal, educational, and medical descriptions of students with intellectual disabilities. However, over time, the word became used as a derogatory term, leading to two youths starting a campaign to end the use of the word. Their efforts continued a concern that has a history. Fretting about the language professionals use to identify and describe individuals with disabilities has a long-standing presence. Charles Macfie Campbell (1921), a Scottish born physician who influenced psychiatry in the US in the first half of the 20th century, mused about changes in terms for “the insane” and what future generations would say about his profession’s use of terms like “idiot,’ “imbecile” and “feeble-minded” when referring to people with intellectual and behavioral disabilities. We should wonder, too, and make efforts to affect what we say and do today.
Current conditions underscore the importance of spreading the word. In some parts of contemporary society, there seems to have been a resurgence of use of the R word (see Special Education Today 27 January 2026). Perhaps to some speakers and writers, using the R word is a declaration of their independence and the superiority of their positions on cultural issues, but to most reasonable humans, using the term as a way to demean someone else is simply inhumane, unkind, inappropriate, not civilized, and a mistake.
The people who led the founding and early efforts by Spread the Word to End the Word argued that…
…the world would be better if everyone were included. Around the world, exclusion and discrimination continue to divide people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities. We are changing that with grassroots action for inclusion. That’s Spread the Word.
Now known more simply as Spread the Word, the campaign continues to grow. Readers can learn more from the Website linked here.
It’s important to note that the emphasis on “inclusion” here is focused on a certain meaning of that word. People in different parts of the world read “inclusion” differently. In its broad sense, inclusion refers to acceptance, being included as a member of the human group, not being denied social, economic, and other similar opportunities. However, in some areas of Earth—the US, in particular—inclusion refers to a narrower meaning: To provide educational programming to all students in the same physical parts of schools. People may differ in their understanding of “inclusion.”
One could even consider inclusion in relation to culture and traditions. In Kenya, for example, the Kenya Institute for Special Education wrote a piece in which they said “When traditional culture becomes part of inclusive education, we unlock creativity, compassion, and understanding, helping children grow not only in knowledge but also in pride and belonging.”
Today, let’s celebrate and promote the broad sense of the word inclusion. Let’s take steps to ensure that individuals with disabilities are regularly found in the vast warp and woof of society (woven into the fabric?) and safe from disrespectful description and second-class treatment.
Reference
Campbell, C. M. (1921). History of insanity during the past century with special reference to the McLean Hospital. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 185, 538-544. https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJM192111031851804