Ohio adults with disabilities receive training to aid disabled school children

From Joe Blundo's Columbus Dispatch column:

One of Ken Lawton's duties is to read to students at West Central School for the developmentally disabled.

On a recent morning, he chose a Winnie the Pooh story called Believe in Yourself -- a title that seemed appropriate.

Though born with Down syndrome, Lawton (pictured), 31, has a job, a girlfriend and a certificate from Columbus State Community College.

He isn't given to grandiose statements; but during an interview, unprodded, he offered this assessment: "I love my life."

He is one of the early graduates of a Columbus State program that educates people with conditions such as Down syndrome, a genetic anomaly that causes varying degrees of mental impairment.

The program was started in 2007 by Lenore Schneiderman, the since-retired chairman of the Human Services Department.

She sometimes visited workplaces where her students served clients with developmental disabilities, and she began to wonder why the clients weren't in college.

"This is something that's a value system of mine -- that I believe anybody can be educated," Schneiderman said.

So she launched an effort that trains developmentally disabled students for jobs at places such as West Central, a school at 1481 W. Town St. run by the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

In the first two years, 21 students completed the course work, with 14 of them employed today.

This year, the program -- which takes four academic quarters to complete -- has 13 students, instructor Jackie Teny-Miller said.

"You have to have around a fifth-grade reading level," she said, "and you have to have the ability to look outside yourself and kind of recognize needs in other people."

The schoolwork can be quite challenging.

"Ken was a big surprise to me," Teny-Miller said of Lawton. "He initially was very shy and didn't participate a lot. Then he went to West Central and just fell in love with it and opened up."

Lawton, who completed the program last year, performs various tasks at his job: wheeling students through the halls, delivering supplies, calling the numbers at weekly bingo games and accompanying students in the "sensory room," where those who aren't mobile receive stimulation via lights, sounds and a water bed.

He also presides over "Ken's Story Hour," when he reads to students. He has a gentle way about him.

Lawton read every page of the Pooh story to Ryan Holton, a severely disabled 21-year-old in a wheelchair. After each passage, before proceeding to the next page, he held the book up to Holton so he could see the pictures.

His son, said Ray Lawton, co-founder of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Ohio, has worked at several places in his life, but his experience at Columbus State has given him new confidence.

That was evident when a West Central employee turned to Lawton and said, "You're a good worker, Ken."

To which he replied: "I know."