Why society continues to infantilise adults with disabilities

This is the second part of the article ‘Conversations We Avoid in Special Education.’

A few months ago, an interaction at school reminded me of how deeply society struggles to recognise adulthood in persons with disabilities.

It was a Saturday — a day usually reserved for physical education and team games. One of our students arrived unusually well-dressed, neatly groomed, and carrying himself with a confidence that immediately caught everyone’s attention.

This student, a 25-year-old young man with Down syndrome, is among the most independent learners in our school.

Without any instruction, he walked to the playground and began organising the other students. He asked them to stand in proper lines, corrected their posture, instructed them to maintain discipline, and began giving commands exactly the way a physical education teacher would.

What fascinated me most was this — the other students listened.

For those few moments, he had naturally stepped into a position of authority, and he was performing it remarkably well.

Around the same time, a parent who had come to drop his six-year-old child watched the scene for a while and smiled.

“Look at this boy… acting like an adult. That looks so cute.”

And, I remember thinking — How do I explain that he is not acting like an adult? He is an adult.

At twenty-five years of age, society continued seeing him first through the lens of disability, and only then, through the lens of personhood. His confidence became ‘cute.’ His leadership became childlike imitation. His adulthood became invisible.

And in that moment, I was reminded of something I have repeatedly observed while working in special education: Perhaps one of the quietest forms of discrimination, persons with disabilities experience, is not exclusion. It is society’s refusal to acknowledge that adulthood arrives for them, too.

Disability studies scholars often describe this pattern as infantilisation — the tendency to treat adults with disabilities in ways that deny age-appropriate autonomy and adult identity.

Although the UNCRPD does not explicitly define infantilisation, disability rights scholars widely recognise such practices as contradicting Article 12 of the Convention, which affirms the right of persons with disabilities to autonomy, legal capacity, and equal recognition before the law.

In simple terms, treating adults with disabilities as perpetual children is not merely a social habit. It is a denial of personhood.

The roots of this thinking often lie in a common misunderstanding: society tends to confuse dependence with incapacity. A person may require support in certain areas of life. But requiring support does not mean the absence of emotions, awareness, preferences, dignity, or the desire to make one’s own choices.

Too often, society assumes that adulthood is defined only by complete independence. And when persons with disabilities require support, they are unconsciously seen as remaining permanently childlike. The consequences of this thinking often remain invisible. Parents make decisions believing they are protecting their child. Families supervise constantly out of love. Caregivers assume safety requires control.

Yet, when adults with disabilities are repeatedly denied opportunities to make choices, express preferences, or exercise independence, something deeper begins happening. Over time, when people are consistently prevented from making decisions for themselves, confidence can gradually weaken and dependence may become reinforced — not because ability is absent, but because opportunities to practice independence were never allowed.

What begins as protection can slowly become limitation. This is something special educators observe often. Parents choose clothes, monitor friendships, restrict independent movement, and make deeply personal decisions on behalf of adults who may be capable of gradually learning these skills themselves.

While these actions often come from genuine concern, the repeated message slowly becomes clear: “You are incapable of handling your own life.”

Across disability support settings, practitioners and researchers have repeatedly observed that excessive control, even when well-intentioned, can unintentionally limit opportunities for self-determination and independence.

Disability researcher Michael L Wehmeyer, whose work on self-determination in persons with intellectual disabilities, is widely recognised internationally, has consistently emphasised that autonomy and choice-making are central to dignity, quality of life, and adult identity. Yet, this is precisely what infantilisation quietly takes away.

What fascinates me is society’s contradiction when it comes to disability. We speak of inclusion. We celebrate disability awareness. We advocate equal rights. Yet, the moment a person with disability begins demanding privacy, independence, authority, or greater control over their own life, discomfort begins to appear.

We are comfortable supporting persons with disabilities. But we are far less comfortable accepting that support should eventually lead to self-determination. A person with disability may require lifelong support. That is reality. But support needs should never erase personhood.

An adult with disability still experiences the need for privacy, relationships, identity, dignity, and the desire to make choices about their own life. Perhaps one of the deepest injustices faced by persons with disabilities is not society questioning what they cannot do. It is society refusing to acknowledge who they are becoming.

The question society must begin asking is no longer whether persons with disabilities need support. The real question is whether we are willing to respect their right to grow beyond the identities we have assigned to them. Because disability may require support. But it should never require surrendering adulthood.

Aditi Phaldesai is a Special Educator with more than a decade of experience working with children and adults with intellectual disabilities