Historically, adapted physical activity scholars have typically positioned their research within a positivist paradigm with the use of quantitative methods of data collection and analysis (e.g., experimental studies using statistical analyses). From a medically-oriented paradigm, much of this research focused on performance variables with individuals labeled as having various disabilities (Bouffard, Strean, & Davis, 1998; Fitzgerald, 2007). Typifying the medical model, individuals with disabilities were deemed to have limited functional ability due to perceived “deficits of their bodies”. The emergence of the social model challenges the medical perspective that the body with disability is in essence a defected human vessel. Focal to the social constructionist model (Gergen, 2000) is the position that individuals with disabilities are limited by the interrelated complexities of politics and policies, institutional structures and practices, and technologies in society which are not constructed in ways to advantage persons with disabilities (Fitzgerald, 2007; Shogan, 1998). In teaching students with disabilities, Tripp and Rizzo (2006) stated that language communicates meaning and arguably disability labels (e.g., cerebral palsy) represent the unavoidable politics of language. A disability label, they found, can have an adverse affect on physical education teachers' intentions toward teaching a student with a particular disability. More research is needed as important questions persist regarding the construction of disability reflected in our language. Extending previous work (Hodge, Kozub, Robinson, & Hersman, 2007), we used a documentary analysis of two premier journals, Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly and the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education to explore trends in the use of language in describing persons with disabilities over the past 25 years. Results of this analysis are discussed with implications for future research and practice. For instance on the horizons is a shift in research paradigms toward qualitative methodologies to better explore and voice embodied perspectives. Fitzgerald (2007) asserts that “by pathologizing the body [the medical model] and focusing on structural issues [the social model] both models are implicated in failing to consider the individual beyond these restricted understandings” (p. 756). We should continue to question our theoretical, educational, philosophical, and methodological research assumptions and practices (Bouffard et al., 1998; Hodge et al., 2007; Tripp & Rizzo, 2006). It is time to go beyond the limited understandings that both the medical and social models permit but rather to acknowledge, explore, and embrace the experiences of individuals with disabilities from an embodied perspective (Fitzgerald, 2005, 2007).Keyword(s): adapted physical activity, professional preparation, research