You have one true audience: the person with disability.

Write for them. Always. Only. First.

When you write with genuine clarity, warmth and respect for the person with disability, everyone else in their world – families, support coordinators, allied health professionals – will be more confident in you, not less. You don’t need to water down your language to catch multiple audiences. You need to get one audience so right that the rest follow naturally. It shows everybody else who your priority is, which makes other people fee at ease and trust you.

Writing directly for people with disability

What they need: Respect, clarity, agency, and the information to make their own decisions or at least be able to form a preference.

The person with disability is not a passive recipient of your services. They are an individual with preferences, history, goals, and – under the NDIS – genuine choice and control over who they work with. Your writing should reflect that. Avoid the ‘you need x services, we are registered for those services so come on down’ attitude towards writing. Why shoud they choose you? If you’re not excited to meet them why should they be excited to meet you?Ā 

Practical principles:

  • Write directly to them – not about them, not around them, not to their family on their behalf
  • Use plain language – short sentences, active voice, no NDIS jargon
  • Lead with what they get, not what you do. What’s the offer?
  • Respect their intelligence – don’t over-explain or patronise
  • Use language that reflects how they identify –Ā outdated language may not jive with them
  • Be specific about what support looks like in practice – not “person-centred care” but what that actually means day to day
  • Make the next step obvious and low-friction

One thing I’ve learnt is to not underestimate the audience, regardless of perceived ability and literacy. People know when they are being condescended to and don’t like it, nobody does. Writing simply for easier accessibility doesn’t need to be baby-talk, it just needsĀ to be better written with fewer, smaller words. Simple writing is a joy to read.Ā 

Segmenting your language within disability

This is where the real craft comes in. The disability community is not monolithic, and the most effective communicators understand that different segments have genuinely different language preferences and communication needs.

An autistic person who identifies strongly with neurodivergent culture will respond very differently to your messaging than someone newly diagnosed with an acquired brain injury navigating the NDIS for the first time. A Deaf person for whom Auslan is their first language has different communication needs to someone with an intellectual disability who benefits from Easy Read formats.

You don’t need to serve every segment. But you should be intentional about which segment you’re writing for in each piece of communication – and let that specificity show. This also requires you to be clear about what segments you’re appealing to.

The multiplier effect on secondary audiences

When families reading your website see their person genuinely respected and centred – they trust you more. Support coordinators see that you understand disability community culture and communicate accordingly – they refer you more confidently. Allied health professionals see language that reflects genuine sector understanding – they take you more seriously.

You earn all of those secondary audiences by being exceptional at the primary one. Not by trying to speak to everyone simultaneously or via 37 different channels.

A note on accessibility in writing

Writing for your audience in the disability sector also means writing accessibly. Plain language, clear structure, adequate contrast, captions on video, alt text on images. They are how you communicate with your actual audience.

We go deep on this in Module 6. But it starts here, in how you write.

Exercise

Take one core message from the last lesson. Write it once directly to the specific person with disability you profiled in Module 1. Don’t write for their family. Don’t write for a support coordinator. Write for them.

Then read it back and ask: does this person feel seen? Do they feel respected? Do they have everything they need to take the next step?

That’s your bar.

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