Disability Expertise

The concept that disabled people hold specialized, experiential knowledge about their own conditions, access needs, and the social environments they navigate — knowledge that non-disabled researchers, clinicians, and designers cannot replicate without engagement. Disability expertise underpins participatory and co-design approaches, the "Nothing About Us Without Us" principle, and critiques of research that pathologizes disabled communities while excluding them from knowledge production. It treats folk knowledge circulating in disability communities as legitimate evidence.