Talk:multiple disabilities

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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multiple disabilities

Creator insists this refers to someone with an intellectual and a motor disability, not just "more than one disability". Citations may be a little trick, any evidence of use in medical literature would be a fine thing. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:15, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• I see hundreds of thousands of uses, so this should probably be at RFD. Ƿidsiþ 13:17, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia article agrees with the entry. Equinox ◑ 13:19, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure thing. Here is a detailed and trustworthy source about multiple disabilities. At the end of the page, there is a quick list of books about multiple disabilities. See Severe and Education of individuals With Multiple Disabilities - Definition and Types of Severe and Multiple Disabilities, MARTHA E. SNELL, StateUniversity.com

Oh my. I needed to create this entry thrice before any discussion started. I'm not familiar with en.wikibooks, but hopefully I know Wikipedia so I was able to insist and make sure the entry is not deleted without a discussion. But it must be really - really - hard for newbies, I bet a few years ago I would not have understood a thing, and I would have given up. Yours, Dodoïste 13:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Your source, ironically enough, seems to say it just means "more than one disability". Mglovesfun (talk) 13:26, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly. I admit it is a little complicated. The source says that "more than one disability" of the same kind is not considered as multiple disabilities. For example, a deaf-blind person does not have multiple disabilities. A person with two motor handicaps does not have multiple disabilities. There are indeed some cases where a multiple disabilities person does not have a mental handicap. But the severity of the handicaps affects significantly the education of the person, so a severe mental retardation appears as the person grows up and usually be detected at a joung age (since 18 months or so).

The official U.S. definition is quite vague, and causes significant misunderstandings. The UK definition, PIMD (Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities) is more accurate and states clearly that it concerns at least of a mental handicap and another kind of handicap. See the book "Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities: Nursing Complex Needs", Jillian Pawlyn, Steven Carnaby. Yours, Dodoïste 14:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think the specificness of the definition can really be supported by citations, since, despite the fact that some authorities may seek to delineate what "multiple disabilities" means, many people clearly use it in a wider sense. Including many professional works (eg here: ‘This classification includes children with a combination of two or more disabilities. These might include deafness, hearing impairment, blindness or visual impairment, mental retardation...’ (etc.), which seems to suggest that someone who's deaf-blind would be considered as having multiple disabilities). Maybe the issue is just whether this is felt to be a set term or not. It seems like a borderline one to me. Ƿidsiþ 14:59, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Should we move to RFD, then? It sounds like another prescriptive definition (like homosexual act). Still, I'd like to see three citations anyway before moving to RFD. Though, as I say, that might be difficult because of the number of total hits involved. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know . . . it seems almost certain that we could find three cites where "multiple disabilities" was applied to a person covered by our sense; but it doesn't follow that said three cites would make this an idiom. What's needed is a sort of "reality-based RFD", where the denizens of WT:RFD look at the facts before voting "keep" or "delete". —Ruakh_TALK 17:51, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Striking as wrong forum, moving to RFD.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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multiple disabilities

Please continue discussion here.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete, easy to show that this can simply refer to (deprecated template usage) multiple + (deprecated template usage) disabilities. The fact that it can also refer to mental and physical handicaps doesn't seem to make it idiomatic. If kept, should probably go back to RFV as it is uncited, although I'd say there's quite a good chance that there are citations out there. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It failed to get citations in a month. No OneLook reference has it. Anyone providing citations can get it reinstated. Therefore, in this case, as in most others, there would have been no harm in an RfV Delete. OTOH, a failed RfD seems more prejudicial and certainly offers no constructive guidance to a would-be contributor.

No one has made a fact-based case for it being a "set phrase". The facts seems to point in the opposite direction. Among the first 40 hits (out of 9,410 total) for "and|or multiple disabilities" were "profound", "severe", "visual", "intellectual", "physical", and "significant".

The sole link with visible content does not support the sense. The reference provided (no page, no quote) is not visible at Google Books. The hand-waving reference to more accurate UK definition does not even say that it is an official definition, which might have some legal force and thereby meet one of the Pawley "idiomaticity" tests.

If every unsupported claim that a term has a prescriptive definition requires this much hand-wringing attention, how will we ever get anywhere? DCDuring TALK 01:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, the WP article consists of a single line in non-standard English. The three "references" do not define the term in accord with the entry. DCDuring TALK 01:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok stronger delete as I didn't know it had already failed the RFV. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

deleted. -- Prince Kassad 23:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)