This is NPR's Life Kit, I'm Thomas Liu.

More than 1 billion people around the world are disabled.

That's about 15% of the world's population.

Here in the United States alone, about 61 million or roughly one out of every four American

adults live with a disability.

In other words, it's probably safe to say that you know someone with a disability or

might be disabled yourself.

But here's the thing, as common as disability is, not many people are comfortable knowing

what to say or how to interact with disabled people.

To so many people, it remains a mystery.

It remains this scary and overwhelming topic.

It's taboo, we don't talk about it, but it's just something that's part of what makes

people who they are.

That's Emily Lidow, a disability rights activist, speaker and writer.

She's the author of the book, demystifying disability, what to know, what to say and

how to be an ally.

In her book, Emily writes frankly about disability, ableism and allyship.

But she's careful about speaking for the entire disabled community.

Community is a challenging word when it comes to disability because it's challenging to

encompass everybody's experiences under one umbrella.

To help us begin to understand disability, Emily has come up with a very specific metaphor.

A pizza.

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