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The cloak of competence, a term that has resurfaced recently, is yet another clever way of using demeaning language to devalue people with disabilities. The implications and impact of this specific expression and the more general transaction of devaluation will be explored. The language we use and the images we associate to individuals create expectancies that then limit or expand opportunities for competency development. What we call people matters.
Keywords: labeling; social imagery; devaluation; intellectual disability; expectancies; DSM
When you read the words "cloak of competence," you should imagine the actor James Earl Jones' deep stentorian voice with much added reverb and echo. This portentous phrase that seems quite dramatic is very much à la mode these days (at least in our part of the world), and I've heard it frequently about an individual who has recently come to our program and whom many professionals (including our organization) have had some difficulty serving. It concerns Albert (not his real name), a mid-30s man with Down syndrome who manages to get into a lot of trouble and who can be dangerous- he has hurt people in the past-and about whom issues of security and simply what to do next are often at the forefront of discussions. Our organization has at any given time about 1,500 clients, and one measure, albeit not a very scientific one, of our problems in dealing with a given individual is whether I, the executive director, know his or her name and how often I hear it. These days, Albert's name is on many tongues, although I've gone months on end without ever hearing his name.
The first time I heard the expression cloak of competence was a few years ago, and it was concerning Albert. When I first heard the expression, I stupidly thought that it meant that he was really smart but that we might be blind to it-that his competence was cloaked by the stigma of disability. The ensuing discussion at first confused me but then it came to me that I had misunderstood (defensively, I'll feebly claim that English is a second language for me). When people were saying that Albert had the cloak of competence, what we were being told was that he acts smart,...