Great to have a post from someone in a l'Arche community, Marion. Tell us more.

When I was in l'Arche for a few weeks in Kent, many years ago, we had all kinds of visitors from l'Arche communities from mainland Europe coming through and visiting - and one of the things that struck me was that people with learning difficulties were so very much of their own cultures - I mean the ones from France were so French you couldn't believe it, and the same for the Italians.

"Some of the people here centre their lives around music and food, and for the others, it's food and music."

I love that. Sounds like my daughter, who's autistic - except with her it'd be "sometimes her life centres round music and food, and sometimes the other way round."

But nine times out of ten, if she cries at night, it's music, and not just any music. It might be Frank Zappa, it might be Gregorian Chant, it might be Mozart, or Vin Garbutt, or Ravi Shakar. You have to work out the right one, and be ready to keep changing till you hit the spot.

What drives me crazy are day centres and residential places where the staff just stick any old sound on and turn their backs on it all. Used to make her angry too, till we managed to get something better set up.

The general term I prefer to use, when it's necessary to use a general term (and most of the time there's no reason to - people have names) is to talk about "people with learning difficulties" - though of course sometimes the people with the biggest difficulties in learning are the people in charge of organising services.

And it's not a matter of "political correctness" - it's the idea that you should treat people with respect and courtesy. I've been told often enough by people who've been called "mentally handicapped" or "retarded" that they don't like those labels. But of course the crucial tbning that matters is the attitudes that lies under the labels - and there are people using less offensive words in such a way as to ensure that sooner or later they will have the same insulting quality as the old ones they replace. And people using the old labels can have precisely the right attitudes.