PERSONS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES FACING THE CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE-STIGMATIZATION, ADAPTATION, INCLUSION

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how the relationship of a healthy person towards people with
special needs has evolved and what needs to be done today to make such people useful and to
make them feel good while giving their contribution in their workplace. Namely, every day more
and more attention is paid to people with special needs. In the past, this was not the case, and
people with special needs in either physical, mental, or any other sense were considered second-class people and felt to be a burden to the society in which they lived. A new way of life, new
technologies, stress, inadequate nutrition from day to day result in more people with special
needs. We definitely need to give this problem more attention and a more serious place. The
paper aims to show that people with special needs can be useful in their environment and society
as a whole. It is considered that the current status of persons with disabilities is still
unsatisfactory. The purpose of the research was to test (confirm or reject) the hypothesis that
people with disabilities are not fully accepted even today and that there is a disparity between
what the media and science say and what exists in real life. The aim was to explore how society
addresses a person with physical and mental disabilities, how it calls a person with visible
physical disabilities and whether the term “etiquette in communication with people with special
needs” is used in society at all. The question is how to help them?