Doctors worry that some parents will not vaccinate their children for swine flu if vaccine has mercury-containing thimerosal

From the ABC News Medical Unit:

With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hoping to have 120 million doses of H1N1 swine flu virus vaccine ready before flu season this fall, some are raising concerns over what they see as an effort to rush the drug through safety trials.

The source of many of these concerns is the probability that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal will be an ingredient in some of the doses of the new vaccine. Concern over thimerosal has lingered for years, despite research that has overwhelmingly found it to be harmless.

"We have yet to find any evidence that thimerosal ever hurt anyone," said Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah.

And while the heat is on manufacturers and governments to ensure that enough doses of the vaccines are available by this fall, when a possible swine flu resurgence is feared, government health officials say that by this time clinical trials will have taken place to determine the correct dosage and whether the vaccine should be delivered in multiple injections.

"I see no reason to anticipate major safety concerns with this vaccine," said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine at George Washington University. "The vaccine will be tested and licensed, and the FDA will not allow it to go forward unless the vaccine is shown to be safe and elicit an effective immune response."

Dr. John Treanor, a professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Rochester, added that the design and production of the swine flu vaccine should be much like that of the seasonal influenza vaccine, which is developed every year without the benefit of time- and cost-consuming clinical trials.

"It's like a new product each year, and when we use it and we don't do clinical studies when [seasonal flu vaccines] are licensed because of the long history of flu vaccine safety," Treanor said.

However, groups opposed to current vaccination practices continue to condemn thimerosal as a toxin responsible for the development of autism and related ailments in children. Additionally, the possibility that the swine flu vaccine could also contain an adjuvant, an ingredient that would allow more doses to be created from existing supplies of the vaccine, has also worried these groups.

"We don't have adequate safety studies on this vaccine before we are moving forward to market," said Lyn Redwood, president and co-founder of the group SafeMinds. "I'm really not convinced that we know for sure that the risk of the disease outweighs the risk of the vaccine, especially since this is a brand new additive that we have never used before in combination with thimerosal."

Some of the lingering fears surrounding a new swine flu vaccine may spring from a single black mark in the flu vaccine's 60-year history. During the 1976-77 flu season, a vaccine developed to prevent the spread of a strain of the swine flu was linked to an as-yet-unexplained increase in cases of a rare neurological condition known as Guillain-Barre syndrome in those who received immunizations.

Medical professionals maintain there was no strong evidence to support the theory that the vaccine caused the neurological disorder. And they said overblown safety concerns should not prevent people, particularly those at high risk of infection such as children and pregnant women, from receiving this year's swine flu vaccine.

"Public perception plays a very important role in how vaccination campaigns succeed," Treanor said. "It will be important to provide transparency and up-to-date safety information."

Donna Cary, a spokeswoman for Sanofi-Aventis, the company that will manufacture the swine flu vaccine, said that they have received an order from the Department of Health and Human Services for a bulk amount of vaccine but that the formula is still to be determined. However, they expect they will be manufacturing two varieties of the vaccine.

"The anticipation is that we will be producing both a thimerosal-free and a vaccine containing thimerosal," Cary said. "Because of the quantities they're talking about, multi-dose vials will be used."

Using thimerosal and multi-dose vials makes vaccines cheaper to manufacture and distribute, Treanor said.

Still, Pavia said, there will likely be enough doses of thimerosal-free vaccine for very young children whose parents fear that the chemical will have some negative effect. Taking such steps, he said, may further ensure than those who need this important vaccine will receive it.

West Virginia school teachers write, illustrate children's book to teach kids about their peers with autism

From The Herald-Mail:

“Deke,” the school bully, has a learning disability. “Tommy” is an autistic student and a target for playground teasing.

In “Wires,” a children’s book written and illustrated by three Berkeley County schoolteachers, the fictional characters somehow become fast friends.

Co-authored by Donna Russler and Tyler Long and illustrated by Christopher Fleming of Tuscarora Elementary School in Martinsburg, the book was written to help general education students and teachers better understand students who are autistic.

“If you don’t work with special education kids, and you see them with your eyes that aren’t trained for special ed, you think that they can’t learn ... but they can, they just do it differently,” said Russler, who is as an autism mentor at the school off Tavern Road. “This is why it’s called ‘Wires’ ... they’re connected differently.”

Autism is a developmental disorder that affects social behavior, communication, fine motor skills and other behaviors.

Long, who teaches students with learning disabilities, estimated nearly 1,000 copies of the book have been sold since its publication was announced in April. The teachers have donated more than $1,000 in proceeds to the school’s library.

The book has attracted interest from other educators. A Shepherd University professor purchased 20 copies for the school’s education program, Russler and Long said. The book also was approved for use in the Manassas Park, Va., school district, Russler said.

They also discussed the book with West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine and Gov. Joe Manchin in April and presented the officials with signed copies.

The authors will be at Waldenbooks at Valley Mall in Halfway on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. for a book signing.

The book was started as a project for a children’s literature class Russler took two years ago. Long suggested they publish the story, which is not based on any particular students.

“I had these ideas, but I didn’t know how to put them on paper — that’s where (Long) came in,” Russler said of their collaboration.

Russler and Long since have decided to write another book about teamwork and good sportsmanship, and said they might write more books after that.

“We want to go all the way down the guidance curriculum,” Long said.

Russler, 50, who has worked with autistic students for 12 years, said she only accepted the job with the intention of “getting her foot in the door” to become a kindergarten aide.

“But (now) I would never change, never,” she said. “I love my kids, they make me laugh. These kids are really, really unique. They teach us as much as we teach them.”
Long, 30, said he first went to school to become a police officer and “fell into this” after about 18 months of working at a correctional facility for children in Falling Waters, W.Va.

“Working with special-needs students, they make every day fun,” he said.

Long said he first worked with students who had behavior disorders when he was hired about six years ago and has been teaching students with learning disabilities for two years.

While Russler never considered writing a book before her class project, Long said he always wanted to write a history book, but was at a loss for how to do it.

His desired topic? Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the older brother of President John F. Kennedy.

Fleming, who teaches mentally impaired students at the school, was unavailable for an interview this week.

Paralympian and family have house adapted by "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"

From the Dayton Daily News. In the picture, Ty Pennington and other designers surprise James and Shannon Terpenning with a knock on the door from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" July 30.

BEAVERCREEK, Ohio — Surprise, wonder, joy and gratitude are the emotions James Terpenning and his family are experiencing as they anticipate a new home courtesy of the ABC TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Terpenning, a civilian computer specialist at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, learned his family would be on the hit show after getting a knock on the door July 30, from “Extreme Makeover” host Ty Pennington.

Nominated by a three-star general, Terpenning, 40, said he’s thrilled by the prospect of a home that will make life easier for his seven-member family, including his four small children, wife Shannon, 33, and his brother Peter.

The family lives in a 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom house with a basement on Carthage Drive.

Terpenning, who has won top medals in the Paralympic Games and acts as a mentor to disabled Iraqi vets, uses a wheelchair following a bout with polio as an infant in Vietnam. James is the son of a G.I. who abandoned him. He was later adopted by an Ohio family.

Peter, 42, also uses a wheelchair, and in the tight confines of their home, it’s no easy task to get around. Peter has cerebral palsy.

Their current home will be bulldozed, and the new one will be revealed to them next week after the family returns from a paid weeklong vacation at Disney World.

The demolition is expected to be on Saturday.

“I’m hoping it will be more wheelchair-accessible and with more open space, not stepping on each other’s toes,” James said.

The production crew flooded the Terpennings’ quiet Beavercreek neighborhood on Thursday with security details, television trucks, producers and countless volunteers.
In addition to Pennington, fans, neighbors, city officials and community members caught a glimpse of country singer Kellie Pickler and the “Extreme Makeover” crew as they shot scenes for the episode that’s set to air this fall.

Local home builder Coventry Fine Homes will construct the house, along with roughly 1,500 volunteers, in about 106 hours.

Boy with CP enjoys water sports on adaptive skis

From WBIR-TV:

These days, only one thing makes Landen Greene (pictured) extremely giddy.

"He loves the water," says Tami Greene, Landen's mother. "Anytime he can get in the water, he wants to be in the water."

But splashing around in the water isn't enough for the 12-year-old. He prefers to be cruising through it, full throttle.

"There's no speed limit in the water," smiles Landen.

No limits period, thanks to Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center's Adaptive Ski Clinic. Greene has Cerebral Palsy and is unable to walk unassisted.

"We've skied people with no legs and arms," says Al Kaye with Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center.

With a special ski, called a can, and a wingman, Landen rides the wake in a seated position.

"The first time--I cried. I screamed. I was scared to death, but then, you just cheer," says Tami.

When he's up, he's free. Free of Cerebral Palsy. Free of disability. To Landen, being behind the boat is literally the best seat in the house.

"It's a blast," says Landen.

Every day, Landen works on his arm strength.

"He wants to be able to hold his ropes. And then, once we get that, we're working on our balance, so maybe we can get rid of the out riggers," says Tami.

Ultimately, Landen wants to tame the water standing, not sitting!

"He's actually seen somebody on the wake board, and he's decided he wants to try to do that," says Tami. "And, I'm not quite up for the wake board yet!"

And, after that, forget land and water. Landen will seek new heights, literally!

"Somebody's actually suggested hang gliding next," laughs Tami. "Yeah, he can do just about anything."

Michigan judge files lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield for refusing to cover therapy for her son with autism

From PRNewswire:

DETROIT -- An Oakland County Circuit Court Judge filed a lawsuit July 31 against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. In her suit, Judge Cheryl Matthews alleges that Blue Cross wrongfully refused to cover the costs associated with the applied behavioral therapy provided to her son, who has autism spectrum disorder.

This suit was filed approximately a month after another challenge to Blue Cross' wrongful refusal to pay for autism therapy resulted in Blue Cross paying $1,000,000 in damages. That case -- Christopher Johns v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan -- was the first successful challenge to an insurer's refusal to pay for applied behavioral analysis, and the families in that case were represented by Gerard Mantese and John J. Conway.

Mantese, co-counsel for Judge Matthews, stated, "It is unfortunate that Blue Cross continues to violate its own insurance policies by refusing to provide needed health care to these children. It has already been demonstrated in the federal case we just settled for Mr. Johns that applied behavioral therapy is highly effective, yet Blue Cross persists in refusing to provide coverage. The bottom line is, these children are entitled to this care."

The Johns v. Blue Cross suit was filed in federal court and addressed applied behavioral therapy that was provided by Beaumont Hospital. This new suit filed by Judge Matthews challenges Blue Cross' refusal to authorize this treatment at a similarly credentialed facility, the Early Intervention Center, which is located in Southfield, Michigan. Judge Matthews stated, "The scientific studies show that this therapy helps autistic children improve their lives. Shame on Blue Cross Blue Shield for intentionally choosing to neglect autistic children."

Co-counsel, John Conway, stated, "We will bring as many of these suits as we have to, to force Blue Cross to comply with their contracts and with the law. Blue Cross' actions are indefensible and we expect to prevail."

Louisiana to add captioned telephone service Aug. 1

From PRWeb:

Hamilton Telephone Company, d/b/a Hamilton Telecommunications, July 31 announced an agreement with The Louisiana Relay Administration Board to provide Captioned Telephone service in Louisiana beginning August 1, 2009. Similar to closed captioning provided on most television programs, Captioned Telephone service is designed for individuals who have difficulty hearing on the telephone.

Captioned Telephone (CapTel®) technology, developed by Ultratec, Inc. of Madison, Wisconsin, allows individuals with hearing loss to view word-for-word captions of their telephone conversations using a CapTel phone. This device is ideal for individuals who use their own voice while conversing on the telephone but may have trouble deciphering the words of the other party.

Through the efforts of the Louisiana Relay Administration Board (a board created by the Louisiana Public Service Commission to administer the state-wide program that provides access to telecom services for people who are hard of hearing, deaf, deaf-blind and speech disabled), Louisianans now have a new option available for communicating via the telephone. "We are thrilled to provide CapTel service to the residents of Louisiana as many across the state have expressed interest in the service," says Dixie Ziegler, Vice President of Hamilton Relay. "Hamilton's goal is to provide its customers with the latest developments in telecommunications technology, resulting in services that are functionally equivalent to traditional telephone services."

Individuals with hearing loss in Louisiana have looked forward to the availability of captioned telephone. Ann Boyd, who has lost her hearing, has been active in expressing her desire for the service and is excited about the startup on August 1st, "You could not have given me any better news! I was just thrilled to learn that Louisiana will be offering CapTel services beginning in August to its citizens who are hard of hearing. As you know, it is the news I've been waiting to hear! I am really looking forward to being able to use CapTel when making and receiving calls. With both volume control and captions, the CapTel phone is an effective and comfortable way for those with mild to profound hearing loss to make phone calls to businesses, doctors, dentists, family members, grandchildren and friends with greater ease and understanding."

To make a call, the CapTel user dials the number of the person they wish to call on the CapTel phone. The call is then connected to the service which provides the captioning. Using state-of-the art voice-recognition technology, a specially trained operator "re-voices" everything said by the standard telephone user, converting speech into text. The captions appear almost simultaneously with the spoken word, allowing CapTel users to understand everything that is said by listening along with reading the CapTel phone's screen. The CapTel phone features adjustable levels of amplification which extend to an additional 35 dB and works in conjunction with a hearing aid's telecoil. CapTel is a telephone designed to allow the user to have natural back and forth conversations with the support of captions.

Amputees in Sierra Leone wonder if they are being left out of disability rights

From Awoko in Sierra Leone:

Barely 24 hours after the ratification of the UN convention on the Rights of People with Disability, the chairman of the Sierra Leone Amputee Association Alhaji Jusu Jaka Ngobeh expressed serious doubt over their own status in the whole ratification.

“Even though I have not set eyes on the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability but by virtue of our current status as amputees we should be considered as part of those with disability,” he stated.

“Listening to the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs Soccoh Kabia on Tuesday this week, he never took cognizance of amputees instead he focused more attention on polio victims and the blind forgetting that we are coming from war situation where there are high percentage of disability from all categories of society, which ranges from sexual base violence victims, war wounded amputees and the list continues” he said.

He also stated that, all the polio victims were and other categories of disabled people were present in Parliament but amputees were never invited to witness the ratification.

He said they have never been consulted on disability matters and as such they are always left out on issues affecting them.

On the reparation exercise he said, some 27,000 amputees have registered with NaCSA under the emergency grant, adding that all those registered stand better chance to benefit from the subsequent reparation packages.

New test can find dyslexia in a child as young as 3

From KABC-TV in Los Angeles:

LOS ANGELES -- One in five students have dyslexia -- a disability that makes learning, and especially reading, difficult. Most cases aren't diagnosed until 3rd grade or later. By then, their chances of catching up in reading are just 1 in 7. But some educators are tackling the problem before a child even knows how to open a book.

Kennedy Woodward is 6 years old and she devours books.

"Now I can read all the words, but sometimes I need some help because it's a long word," said Kennedy.

But her hunger for reading and writing wasn't always this strong.

"She would start writing some of her letters and her numbers backwards," said Sandy Woodward, Kennedy's mom.

In preschool, Kennedy showed early signs of dyslexia.

"We want to identify children early because this is basically a treatable condition. We want to catch them really before they have a chance to fail," said Laura Bailet, Ph.D., neurocognitive specialist.

Having a parent with dyslexia boosts a child's chances of having it by 30 to 40 percent. Other red flags are: trouble recognizing their names in print, struggling with letter names, sounds and rhyming.

A new test looks for dyslexia in kids as young as 3 years old. If they fail a series of rhyming and letter questions, they're enrolled in a nine week alphabet-intensive program.

"The children who were all below average when they started our educational intervention, almost 70 percent of them, moved to the normal range," said Bailet.

After getting help, Kennedy raised her test score from 40 to 95 percent.

"My belief is if you can be successful in reading you can be successful in anything in life," said Sandy.

Kennedy's taking on childhood one page at a time.

It's a common myth more boys are dyslexic than girls, but one study shows boys are more likely to get noticed because they tend to act out when frustrated.

USA signs UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

From AFP:

UNITED NATIONS — Amid applause and a smattering of hoots, the US ambassador to the United Nations on July 30 signed a landmark UN convention promoting and protecting the rights of the world's 650 million disabled people.
Present at the signing ceremony at UN headquarters were President Barack Obama's senior aide Valerie Jarrett; William Kennedy Smith, a US advocate for the rights of the disabled; and representatives of American disabled groups.

Rice noted that the United States was joining 141 countries in signing what is the first major human rights treaty of the 21st century.

Signatory countries are expected to enact laws and other measures to improve disability rights and to abolish legislation and practices that discriminate against the disabled.

The UN convention, which was adopted in 2006, "urges equal protection and equal benefits under the law for all citizens," the US ambassador said. "It rejects discrimination in all its forms and calls for full participation and inclusion in society of all persons with disabilities."

Thursday's signing "represents a profound shift and an engagement not only in disability rights, but with the international community in general that has happened since the change in (US) administration," Smith said.

Rice highlighted the significance of the treaty by pointing to the glaring inequalities the disabled face in obtaining healthcare, education and work.

According to a June 2009 poll by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, unemployment among disabled people in the United States stands at 14.3 percent, compared with 9.5 percent for persons with no disability.

Obama will soon bring the treaty before the US Senate for ratification, she added.

Jarrett, meanwhile, took the opportunity to announce the creation of a new senior-level disabilities human rights position in the State Department.

"This individual will be charged with developing a comprehensive strategy to promote the rights of persons with disabilities internationally," she added.

"Discrimination against people with disabilities is not simply unjust, it hinders economic development, limits democracy and erodes society," Rice added.

British woman with MS wins right to have her husband avoid prosecution if he helps her die

From The Guardian in the UK:

Debbie Purdy (pictured) has won a significant legal victory in the House of Lords which lawyers are describing as a turning point for the law on assisted suicide.

Purdy, 46, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis, succeeded in arguing that it is a breach of her human rights not to know whether her husband, Cuban jazz violinist Omar Puente (pictured), will be prosecuted if he accompanies her to Swiss clinic Dignitas where she wishes to die if her condition worsens.

The decision – the last ever by the law lords before they recommence work as justices of the new supreme court in October – went further than expected in Purdy's favour, lawyers say.

Ordering the director of public prosecutions to issue a policy setting out when those in Puente's position can expect to face prosecution, the court ruled that the current lack of clarity is a violation of the right to a private and family life.

"It's a complete victory," said Saimo Chahal, partner at Bindmans who represented Purdy. "I always knew we would have to go to the House of Lords to get a judgment that was reasoned and considered."

Purdy's two previous attempts to request a policy from prosecutors failed after the courts said the current situation was lawful.

Despite at least 115 British people already known to have travelled abroad for an assisted suicide, with an average of two a month since 2002 and despite scores of police investigations, not a single family member has been prosecuted.

A report last month from campaign group Dignity in Dying, which has supported Purdy's case, warned that a further 34 Britons were in the final stages of travelling abroad for the same purpose.

Earlier this month renowned British conductor Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his wife Joan, 74, joined those who have ended their lives at Dignitas. Their death, watched by their children Caractacus, 41, and Boudicca, 39, is still the subject of a police investigation.

In a further development last year, DPP Keir Starmer published a decision not to prosecute the relatives of 23-year-old rugby player Daniel James even though there was enough evidence, because it was not in the public interest.

Campaigners welcome today's victory for Purdy as a recognition of rights for those who wish to die in a manner of their choosing, and say that what is ultimately needed is a change in the law.

"Parliament urgently needs to acknowledge the fact that people are travelling overseas to die – and this trend shows no sign of stopping", said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.

"It's time the 1961 Suicide Act was brought up to date to reflect what's really going on in UK courts".

Parliament has so far resisted attempts to change the law, with the latest proposals defeated in the House of Lords by 194 votes to 141 this month. But campaigners say today's ruling will place unprecedented pressure on parliament to act.

"This case means the DPP will have to publish the factors for and against prosecuting those who assist suicide abroad, but it would only be retrospective," Wootton said. "But it sends a clear message that the law can distinguish between different types of behaviour, and saying that compassionate assistance is not a crime. Surely parliament will need to react to that."

California hosts forum for disabled students

From the Ventura County Star:

SACRAMENTO — Johnathon Hoover and Alessandro Neri — two recent high school graduates with physical disabilities — traveled to Sacramento this week as Ventura County delegates in a forum of disabled students.

Hoover and Neri were two of 59 students with disabilities from throughout the state who attended the Youth Leadership Forum. The five-day forum offers disabled students the chance to network, meet disabled professionals, and learn new ways of reaching their career goals.

“I’ve faced a lot of persecution because I wasn’t a ‘normal student,’” said Neri, 18, of Newbury Park High School, who has a rare growth disorder called Sotos syndrome. He said a disabled person is often seen as just that, disabled.

Forum co-chairwoman Teresa Favuzzi said this stigma often discourages disabled youths, who often have few role models. The forum, she said, allows students to learn they are not alone.

“This is one of those opportunities where they go, ‘There are people who look like me, that have similar experiences, and they are part of a larger community,’” Favuzzi said. “We’re all looking for positive reflections of ourselves.”

Hoover, 18, was born with cerebral palsy. He said he went to the Sacramento forum to achieve his goal of owning a business.

“I want to see my name on a building someday,” said Hoover, an Oxnard native who went to Santa Barbara High School.

He hopes to go to Oregon State University and study business. Hoover said he has always been told this would be impossible.

“People told me I would never graduate,” Hoover said. “The doctors told me I would never walk, and I’ve done that.”

During the forum, Hoover met Dana Lamon, a blind California judge. Hoover said meeting Lamon strengthened his resolve to go into business.

“It’s a real inspiration,” Hoover said. “If I hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have met people that are like me, that I can relate to more than anyone.”

For Neri, coming to Sacramento was especially exciting, as he hopes to go into politics.

“I hope to become an advocate and a fundraiser for good causes, like disability programs.” Neri said, noting he is already a member of the Democratic Club of Conejo Valley.

Neri, Hoover, and other students went the governor’s office Wednesday where they met Jim Krider, former vice mayor of Napa, who uses a wheelchair.

“You don’t worry about it,” Krider said, referring to disabilities. “You say this is me. I’m proud of me.”

Fillmore resident and forum counselor Jonas Gomez said the event can be life-changing for disabled students. Gomez, whose left arm is paralyzed, attended the forum after graduating from Fillmore High School in 2004.

“I had a new enthusiasm,” Gomez said of attending the forum. “It’s the first time for a lot of them where they find people who genuinely want to help them.”

The forum was first held in 1992 and is conducted by the Employment Development Department, the Department of Rehabilitation, and private groups.

More polio cases in Bajaur, Dir regions of Pakistan

From The International News:

PESHAWAR -- Three more polio cases were reported on July 30 in the militancy-hit Bajaur tribal region and Upper Dir district in Malakand, raising the total number of polio cases to 10 this year in the province.

Provincial TB Control Programme manager, Dr Syed Mujahid Shah confirmed the new polio cases and argued that the areas where fresh cases surfaced were inaccessible for health workers.

Interestingly, the two unfortunate kids in Bajaur’s Arang and Mamond areas were reportedly administered polio drops in the three rounds of anti-polio campaign. Officials in Bajaur said they had confirmed P-III virus to the ill-fated Omar Khan son of Gul Wazir of Regi village of Mamond subdivision.

Mamond subdivision in Bajaur has been under the control of Taliban militants led by Maulana Faqir Muhammad for the past one year, making it hard for the government employees including health workers to do their jobs.

The second child detected with P-I virus is a baby girl, identified as Afsana Bibi daughter of Sher Mohammad. An official of the health department based in Bajaur said on condition of anonymity that Afsana was properly administered polio drops during the vaccination campaign in the area.

He said Arang area of Bajaur has been under the control of militants and health workers had freely worked to vaccinate kids against poliovirus. He said some clerics and militants were though launching a malicious propaganda against the immunization. He did not believe people would have paid any heed to their statements.

Another official in Bajaur blamed workers affiliated with the TB control programme for the new cases, saying, they never ensure immunization of kids in areas such as Bajaur. Also, he said, some of the health workers and sometime volunteers associated with the TB programme rarely take care of the polio drops due to lack of facilities. The official said he has observed in certain cases that polio drops were often exposed to sunlight in remote areas, thus making their whole exercise futile.

The lack of proper monitoring and then less incentives to the workers serving in Another child reported with poliovirus in Upper Dir, but it was not clear whether the kid received polio drops or not. There has been no refusal in Upper Dir recently and the polio teams did not face any such problems in vaccinating children against polio.

Dr Mujahid Shah said he was working with his team members to collect complete information about the three kids reported with poliovirus. He said like several other kids, the three children might not have received polio drops and therefore could have possibly become prey to the poliovirus.

With these three new cases, the total number of polio victims in the NWFP rose to 10. Besides, two each polio cases were detected in Mohmand, Bajaur and Charsadda, and one in Kohistan district.

adverse conditions in restive regions to vaccinate kids despite propaganda by the militants and mullahs were said to be some key factors making the immunization campaign a failure.

USDA grant in Idaho will keep disabled farmers working

From Capital Press:

The USDA has awarded $199,000 to the University of Idaho-Moscow for the Idaho AgrAbility Project, designed to help farmers and farm family members with disabilities.

Nationwide, the USDA awarded $4.1 million in grants to 22 states. The AgrAbility program helps thousands of disabled people overcome barriers to continuing their chosen professions in agriculture, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in announcing the grants on July 23.

"Given the right resources, farmers with disabilities can run productive and profitable farms," Vilsack said. "The AgrAbility program can provide the resources and tools producers need to enhance their quality of life and be successful."

USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service awards the funds to land-grant universities that work with nonprofit disability organizations.

Projects include educating professionals on how to assist those with disabilities and directly training disabled agricultural workers.

The program has improved customers' financial stability, access to life activities and the ability of states and regions to deliver timely services to those with disabilities.

The Idaho AgrAbility Project began in 1992. Previously, the AgrAbility partnership was directed by United Cerebral Palsy of Idaho. In January, it came under the direction of the Idaho Center for Assistive Technology in an effort to reach more producers.

"We thought we were losing too many people because they thought it was just for people with cerebral palsy," said Robert Renteria, public relations specialist for the Idaho Center for Assistive Technology in Boise.

The project assists farmers and their family members with any type of disability.

Disabilities do no have to be a result of an ag-related accident, he said.

"It can be from a hunting accident, auto accident, walking outside and slipping on ice, arthritis, back pain, a degenerative disease," Renteria said.

The Idaho AgrAbility Project includes three partners: the University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System, the Idaho Assistive Technology Project, both in Moscow, and the Idaho Center for Assistive Technology in Boise.

"What we're really trying to do is help find a way to run an operation to provide independence and prevent secondary injuries," Renteria said. "We'd really like to keep as many people in ag working as independently as possible."

The AgrAbility Project will do a confidential on-site assessment, bringing in the Idaho State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation to see if the person qualifies for its programs and put people in touch with suppliers of disability products and equipment modifications.

The project provides services, but does not provide money or products.

Congress authorized the AgrAbility Project in the 1990 Farm Bill. Since initial funding in 1991, CSREES has awarded grants to more than 30 states resulting in on-farm assistance to more than 12,000 farmers.

Australia will allow complaints mechanism for UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities

From The Age in Australia:

Australia has cleared the way for people to take complaints about disability discrimination policies to the United Nations — including prospective migrants with disabled children.

The Rudd Government announced July 30 that a year after signing the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, it intends to agree to the optional protocol that establishes a complaints mechanism for breaches of the treaty.

People will only be able to take their complaints to the UN disabilities committee if they have exhausted all possible avenues of redress inside Australia.

"Accession to the protocol is important," Attorney-General Robert McClelland will say in a speech to be delivered today. "It not only permits international scrutiny of our laws and practices, but also demonstrates our commitment to re-engage with the international community and to provide leadership in our region."

One potential area where Australia could come under international scrutiny is its migration laws, which are exempt from its disability discrimination laws.

Last year, the Government came under pressure after it was revealed that German doctor Bernhard Moeller, who had been working in Horsham in rural Victoria, was refused permanent residency because he had a son with Down syndrome.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans intervened and overturned the decision.

Following the controversy, the Government set up a joint standing committee inquiry into the health requirements in the Migration Act, to be chaired by Victorian MP Michael Danby. Its terms of reference are still being finalised.

Article 18 of the UN convention recognises the rights of people with disabilities to "liberty of movement, to freedom to choose their residence and to a nationality".

But when Australia signed the convention last July, it did so with a number of "declarations". One of these sought to exempt Australia from article 18 of the convention because of the country’s migration laws.

Australia’s declaration states its "understanding that the convention does not create a right for a person to enter or remain in a country of which he or she is not a national, nor impact on Australia’s health requirements for non-nationals seeking to enter or remain in Australia, where these requirements are based on legitimate, objective and reasonable criteria".

Lawyers have questioned whether this declaration is consistent with the convention.

University of Buffalo opens Center for Disability Studies

From the University of Buffalo Reporter:

The College of Arts and Sciences has launched a Center for Disability Studies, a partnership between CAS and People Inc. aimed at advancing greater acceptance of persons with disabilities in the community.

The goal of the center, which is housed in CAS, is to encourage the study, teaching and accurate representation of disability, and of individuals with disabilities, says David Gerber, UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and center director.

The present task of the center, which is operating on a three-year trial basis, is to sponsor a visiting scholar for one semester each academic year for the three years. The scholar, Gerber says, will teach a course on disability history in his or her academic discipline, deliver a public lecture or presentation, and help open a new “wing” of People Inc.’s Museum of disABILITY History’s online virtual museum , as well as consult on new exhibits for the traditional museum, located at North Forest and Maple roads in Amherst.

The scholar also will help plan the Disability Film Festival that is held each fall in the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center in downtown Buffalo.

The center held an inaugural event last April that featured a keynote address on “When Blind People March for Dr. King,” by Catherine Kudlick, professor of history at the University of California-Davis and president of the Disability History Association.

Gerber, whose scholarly interests include the history of disabled World War II veterans, notes that the center furthers the agendas of both People Inc. and UB. People Inc. is working to create greater understanding of persons with disabilities and expand their integration into the community. For years, many persons with disabilities lived in large institutions, but that is no longer the case—partly due to the cost, and partly because that model is outmoded, he says, adding that the general consensus now is that it is wrong to “warehouse” persons with disabilities.

People Inc. worked with Assembly member Mark Schroeder to get the state Legislature to establish an annual Disability History Week (the resolution, passed in June 2008, sets the third week in October as Disability History Week) during which teachers in the public schools would help students learn how persons with disabilities were instrumental in changing history and how they became active participants in changing societal attitudes.

“People Inc. wants Americans to be educated to accept persons with disabilities living in the community to the extent that is possible,” Gerber says. “But to do that, you have to have a different understanding of what it means to be disabled and a different concept of disability.”

From UB’s perspective, the center would help further the emergence of disability studies as a new multidisciplinary field of study, he says.

He points out the topic can be viewed as a civil rights issue—the expansion of freedom and social participation of persons with disabilities—as well as a more profound intellectual issue concerning the “ongoing questioning of what we as a society regard as normal and natural.”

The search for the visiting scholar is under way and being conducted by the center’s advisory committee, which includes members Francisco Vasquez, executive vice president of People Inc. and adjunct faculty member in the Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Degree Programs (IDP); James Boles, CEO of People Inc., ex officio; Susan Cahn, associate professor of history; Lee Dryden, director of the Social Sciences IDP; Ann McElroy, associate professor of anthropology; Edward Steinfeld, professor of architecture and director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access; John Stone, clinical associate professor of rehabilitation sciences and director of the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange; and Cynthia Wu, assistant professor of American studies.

The goal is to have a scholar on board for the spring 2010 semester, Gerber says.

President Obama hedges on community services for people with disabilities

From Jennifer LaFleur at ProPublica:

President Obama signed a measure last week recognizing the rights of people with disabilities around the world. The United Nations Convention Proclamation on the Rights of People with Disabilities calls for equality in access to public services, medical care and other services.

It also called for the right for people to choose where they live: "To recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others."

Yet in the United States, many people with disabilities do not have that choice.

We reported in June that thousands of people nationwide want to live on their own, but instead remain in nursing homes, rehabilitation centers or state hospitals, often at a higher cost to taxpayers because of a historic bias toward institutional care. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that funding services for Medicaid recipients who live in institutions — and not those who live in the community — violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"Signing a U.N. Convention proclamation doesn’t give anybody freedom," said Bruce Darling, a disability activist with ADAPT from Rochester. "We are still forcing people to live in nursing homes."

Disability groups have pushed for legislation, such as the proposed Community Choice Act, which would allow people with disabilities to stay at home. Medicaid guarantees service in a nursing home for those who need that level of care, but similar services in the community are optional.

Measures have been introduced in Congress for several years that would allow people to choose where they want services. When President Obama was in the Senate, he co-sponsored such legislation. But since he has been in the White House, Obama has not said he will support moves to make community services mandatory.

In June, Obama called for increased spending on independent living services and directed HUD to provide vouchers to individuals trying to move out of institutions.

A White House spokesman told ProPublica "the President believes that investing in health and long-term services for people with disabilities is an important national priority," but would not say whether the President will support legislation to make community services mandatory.

"Ultimately this becomes a bureaucratic conversation about spending health care dollars," activist Darling said. "And we completely lose the concept that this is a civil rights issue for Americans. No other group gets locked up like this. No one would stand for it."

NY City officials say serving disabled citizens a top priority

From NY1:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that meeting the needs of disabled New Yorkers is a top priority.

The mayor spoke at New York University July 28 during the first-ever Disability Summit.

He touted the advances the city has made in making buildings, parks and transportation more accessible to the disabled, but said he would like to do more.

"I want to make sure we are a leader in providing services to people with disabilities," said Bloomberg. "We really do want to make sure that all New Yorkers enjoy everything that is possible about our great city and our great country. That's why breaking down the remaining barriers really is a top priority."

The summit was organized by the Fund for the City of New York and the Disabilities Network of New York City.

The news release from NY City Comptroller William C. Thompson:

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. (pictured) July 28 called for stronger oversight of the Access-A-Ride program, charging that contractors routinely blame disabled New Yorkers for not showing up when the contractors may in fact be leaving them at the curb.

“Thousands of New Yorkers depend on Access-A-Ride for transportation services 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, the program’s performance has fallen far short of its promise.”

Thompson released his audit at the first annual policy summit co-sponsored by the Disabilities Network of New York City and the Fund for the City of New York. Addressing dozens of disability advocates, Thompson reflected on the progress both accomplished and still needed to improve accessibility for New Yorkers

“We all know that there is still a long way to go,” Thompson said, “that the issues facing New York’s disability community – those with mobility, sensory, cognitive and other types of disabilities – have too often been overlooked, forgotten, and ignored in recent years.”

“Despite all of our efforts,” he said, “New York City’s transportation system remains unreliable and too inaccessible. This is nothing short of an injustice because transportation is the lifeblood of this city.”

Thompson’s audit – available at www.comptroller.nyc.gov – exposed that New York City Transit (NYCT) lacked the necessary oversight to rectify significant deficiencies at Access-A-Ride vendors. In Calendar Year 2008, the year examined in the audit,
6.3% of the 5.8 million assigned trips were no shows – a total of 362,587 trips.

Thompson’s audit charged that NYCT had no systematic method to evaluate how accurate its contractors were in classifying who was responsible for a no show – the contractor, the passenger, or neither.

“Instead, the agency’s reviews of completed routes were sporadic, and there was no protocol for deciding how many or which routes to review or what no-show trips on a route to further investigate,” Thompson said. “As a result, the agency was unable to determine the degree to which contractors accurately classified no-shows.”

He added, “This significantly increases the risk that contractors may be understating the number of contractor no-shows to inflate their performance results and to receive incentive payments to which they are not entitled, or avoid paying damages for which they are liable.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s New York City Transit manages Access-A-Ride, the City’s paratransit system. Access-A-Ride provides door-to-door transportation for people with disabilities who are unable to use public bus or subway service. Service is available 24-hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the five boroughs.

Private carriers under contract with NYCT provide the Access-A-Ride service. During Calendar Year 2008, NYCT contracted with 14 private companies. Contracts with three of these vendors were not renewed by NYCT for Calendar Year 2009.

Access-A-Ride customers can phone up to two days in advance to schedule a trip. Once scheduled, the customer must be at their pickup location and be prepared to wait up to 30 minutes after the scheduled pick up time. Access-A-Ride vehicles arriving during the 30-minute window plus a 15 minute grace period are considered to be on time.

According to an Independent Budget Office report, the cost of operating Access-A-Ride has more than doubled between Calendar Years 2000 and 2005 because of a large increase in ridership. Over this six-year span, annual operating expenses increased from $85.2 million to $189.8 million while annual ridership increased from 2.3 to 4.7 million trips. In Calendar Year 2008, the total cost of the program for the 14 carriers was $242.8 million for approximately 5 million completed trips.

Thompson’s audit demonstrated that for vehicles without GPS, NYCT cannot accurately evaluate the no-shows or the arrival times reported by its vendors. For vehicles in the review that did have GPS, nearly one-quarter either did not have the system turned on or said it was not working, making it difficult to corroborate the records for those vehicles as well.

“Predictably, we found that nearly two-thirds of misclassified no-shows were originally recorded in favor of the contractor and at the expense of the customer,” Thompson said. “Such carelessness on the part of Access-A-Ride vendors can have enormous consequences.

If riders are wrongfully blamed for not showing up, it could possibly lead to an unfair service suspension, leaving eligible registrants unable to travel where they need to go.”

Finally, Thompson noted that NYCT was unable to provide his office with evidence that the City takes meaningful steps to discuss complaint patterns with individual carriers or require corrective action plans from carriers to improve the quality of the service.

“This shows a stunning indifference to the challenges faced by New Yorkers with disabilities, and it is simply unacceptable,” he said.

To address issues exposed in the audit, Thompson made several recommendations, including that NYCT should:

-- Prepare written guidelines to ensure that no-shows are reviewed in a systematic and consistent manner.
-- Enhance its monitoring of no-shows to ensure that each vendor is reviewed continually.
-- Include the total number of no-shows that are reviewed in its no-show reconciliation-review reports so that the error rates for vendor no-show classifications can be determined.
-- More closely monitor analysts’ no-show reviews to ensure that questionable no-show classifications by vendors are adequately identified and reclassified.
-- Ensure that its contract managers more effectively utilize complaint-tracking data by discussing negative trends with vendors and requiring them to take necessary
action to correct the identified problems.
-- Ensure that its contract managers more clearly document their discussions with vendors on performance issues.

New Jersey to release 300 people from psychiatric facilities as part of Olmstead lawsuit settlement

From The Star-Ledger. In the picture, Senator Garrett W. Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in Glen Gardener, Hunterdon County, which currently houses 85 patients eligible for release.

TRENTON -- Nearly 300 patients stranded inside the state's psychiatric hospitals for more than a year because of a lack of housing and outpatient treatment services will be discharged over the next five years, under a lawsuit settlement announced July 29 by a disability advocacy group and the state Department of Human Services.

The 2005 lawsuit contended New Jersey's five psychiatric hospitals routinely and illegally confined hundreds of patients every year who are medically ready to leave but languish because they don't have an affordable place to live with nearby treatment services.

Without the state committing to "fix the problem by a specific date," according to the lawsuit by Disability Rights New Jersey, the state violates the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Olmstead, which required people with disabilities be allowed to live in the least restrictive setting possible.

The settlement now requires the state within five years to discharge 297 patients waiting for more than a year for housing and outpatient care, and to create affordable and supervised housing for 1,065 future patients leaving hospitals, or as an alternative to inpatient care.

At the end of five years, the state also must adhere to a rule that no patient waiting for discharge - known as "conditional extension pending placement'' - will wait longer than four months.

"We would have liked a faster discharge but it's certainly much better than it is now,'' said Joseph Young, the executive director for Disability Rights, formerly New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. when the lawsuit was filed. "We've got a plan, and movement toward implementing the plan.''

The state will commit $5 million a year toward carrying out the settlement starting immediately, said Deputy Human Services Commissioner Kevin Martone, who blame the state's prolonged budget problems for delaying the settlement.

"Philosophically, we were on the same page but there are the practical realities we face in state government, and that is what took time,'' Martone said.

As of July 10, officials said 735 of the roughly 1,900 patients in state hospitals were medically cleared to leave. That includes 248 patients from Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Camden County; 215 patients in Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris County; 187 in the Trenton hospital in Mercer County and 85 at the Senator Garrett W. Hagedorn facility in Hunterdon County, Human Services spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy said.

"This settlement reflects both parties' dedication to protecting the civil rights of people with mental illness and advances the department's philosophy of community integration," Governor Jon S. Corzine said in a prepared statement.

"My Brother Tom" explores a childhood with undiagnosed Asperger's

From The Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts. You can watch the short documentary here.

Local filmmaker and musician Kaz Gamble didn't want to make the customary (i.e. bor – ring) corporate film for the Asperger's Association of New England. So he took … a gamble.

“I did a regular version, more the standard kind of corporate video style with talking heads saying, ‘This is what Asperger's is' and that sort of thing,” said Gamble, whose younger brother, Tom Gamble, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome three years ago at the age of 30. “I also told them, at the same time, ‘I'd love to do one that's a more personal story, and if you guys like it you can use it, and if not, that's OK.' ”

Not to worry.

When the association saw the personal story, a short documentary called “My Brother Tom,” “they ended up loving that version, and that's what they used, so it worked out really well,” Gamble said.

Now the film has gone on to a life of its own beyond the Asperger's Association fundraising event for which it was initially made. Gamble's film was shown at the New Hampshire Film Festival and the Dam Short Film Festival in Nevada. July 29 it was screened at the Woods Hole Film Festival on Cape Cod, where it has been nominated as best documentary short.

“Contrition,” a film by Princeton director John Stimpson, was screened July 25 at Woods Hole. “It was very well-received,” Gamble said. The film will have a second screening Saturday. Both “Contrition” and “My Brother Tom” were produced by Worcester film diva Andrea Ajemian (“Still Green,” “Rutland, USA”).

A 10-minute version of “My Brother Tom” can be seen on the Asperger's Association of New England Web site. ( www.aane.org). Gamble is showing a 12-minute version at film festivals. “It's 20 percent longer,” he said. “I guess you could call it the director's cut.” Jokes aside, the festival circuit was always his Plan B, a fallback had the association decided to go with a more standard corporate piece.

“I was planning on showing it through these film festivals to figure out if people would even be interested in seeing it, and the response has been really great,” Gamble said. He plans to ask around to see if there is any interest in a Worcester screening.

Through video, family photographs, voiceovers and music the film tells the story of his family's struggle to understand Tom as he grew up with undiagnosed Asperger's, a neurological condition that generally is considered a form of autism. The condition, which is still being defined by clinicians, often is marked by deficiencies in social and communication skills.

The Woods Hole Film Festival awards will be announced August 1, but accolades were not Gamble's main motivation in making this film.

“For me the most important thing is awareness,” Gamble said. “With awareness you can get help and your life is made a lot easier. After my brother's diagnosis, the whole family figured out what direction we're headed in. The Asperger's Association of New England kind of gave us a road map for the rest of this journey. It's still tough, but it's a lot easier now that we're not in the dark any longer.”

Northwest Colorado celebrates disability awareness

From Craig Daily Press:

Evelyn Tileston’s office looks like any other workspace. She has a desk with a computer and pictures of her family on a shelf.

The difference is, Tileston (pictured) can’t see the pictures of her family.

“It’s nice to have them there anyway,” she said.

Tileston, who is blind, is the executive director for the Independent Life Center, 483 Yampa Ave., where half of the employees and board members also have disabilities.

The center, certified as one of 10 centers for independent living in the state, is a supporter of Northwest Colorado Disability Awareness Day, which takes place Friday.

The state originally signed a proclamation declaring this week the first Disability History Week, however Tile­ston said the event should be more about awareness and understanding.

The Moffat and Routt county commissions, along with Hayden, Craig and Steamboat Springs city councils, have signed proclamations declaring this week the first Disability Awareness Week and Friday as Disability Awareness Day.

“This was the first time the state has really acknowledged that people with disabilities need to be noticed,” she said. “We decided to have an event that would show support for the efforts of the disabled, so the community could become more aware of that population.”

Those who have purchased T-shirts for Disability Awareness Day can wear them around the community Friday to receive discounts at local businesses such as McDonald’s, the Village Inn and Kum & Go.

Everyone in the community also is encouraged to “adopt” a disability for an hour or more to gain a better understanding of what it’s like to be disabled.

Tileston recommended eliminating the use of one hand, blindfolding yourself or wearing heavy gloves.

However, it’s important to use common sense and not put yourself or anyone else in danger while you are being disabled.

“We want people to be able to do this in the privacy of their homes, or even in public if they so choose” she said. “It can be a very scary thing to be deaf or blind for a day if you don’t have a disability.”

Tileston works with people with disabilities every day at the Independent Living Center. The center is a nonprofit organization, community-based program funded by the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

There are 10 independent living centers in Colorado, all of which cater to any kind of person with any kind of disability. They all are required to have board members and employees with disabilities.

“A lot of people who come in here don’t have money for things like food,” Tileston said. “We teach them what resources there are in the community and give them the tools to get them out of whatever mess they’re in.”

The building has a computer lab with special software that people with disabilities might need. They provide counseling and access to the computer lab free of charge.

Tileston is grateful to have the support of the state and the community for pulling the event together.

She said she hopes the event will be even larger next year and that everyone in the community will get involved in some way, whether they blindfold themselves or engage in a conversation about people with disabilities.

“Just go up and talk to people with shirts on,” she said. “Talk to them about disability issues. It’s OK to ask questions. You don’t need to be uncomfortable to talk to people about blindness, deafness or mobility issues. This is a time when everyone should be having conversations and be planning for the future.”

Paralympian runners teach other amputees how to pick up speed on new prosthetics

From The Detroit News. In the picture, Todd Schaffhauser shows Gabrielle Farmer of Bloomfield Township how to do lunges with her prosthesis.

Myles Davis dreams of becoming a professional basketball player -- if he can learn to run faster with his prosthesis.

The 21-year-old Detroiter lost his leg to cancer when he was 8. Although he hops and skips, he still gets around fast enough to win gold medals in Paralympic competitions, a U.S. Olympic committee-sponsored competition for people with disabilities. Nevertheless, he dreams of a smoother, swifter gait.

Today, he'll take his quest higher when he'll get more instruction from two of the world's fastest Paralympians, Dennis Oehler and Todd Schaffhauser, at the Amputee Walking School at the Detroit Medical Center's Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.

"I'm hopping right now," Davis says, "but when I can get that little speed, I look like I am running. They are trying to teach me how to do foot-over-foot running instead of hopping and skipping. That way, I'll be even faster."

The Amputee Walking School, which also is sponsored by Michigan Orthopedic Services, is designed for everyone from young amputees who lost limbs because of violence or cancer to seniors who lost legs to diabetes. Some students will come to the workshop without the ability to stand on their own; others will arrive in wheelchairs, ready to try walking with their prosthesis again.

But Schaffhauser says Davis' story illustrates what commonly happens to amputees: their insurance runs out and their physical therapy stops short of teaching them all they need to know to fully live their lives.

That's where the pair, who travel the world running amputee schools, step in.

"Myles has got the potential to be a Paralympic athlete," Schaffhauser said. "Along the way he didn't get enough rehab to do some things. It takes consistent instruction. We're looking forward to working with him to run step-over-step to run smoother and faster."

Like Davis, Schaffhauser was diagnosed with bone cancer and had his left leg amputated above the knee. In 1988, he became the world's fastest above-the-knee amputee by running 100 meters in 15.77 seconds at the Paralympics in Seoul, Korea. Oehler lost his leg below the knee after being struck by a car in 1984, a few days before he was to sign a professional soccer contract. He set a world record, 11.73 seconds in the 100-meter dash, in the 1988 Paralympic Games.

Their program started largely against their will 20 years ago when a prosthetic company in Texas contacted them about doing a workshop for four amputees. While they didn't want the job, the native New Yorkers' physical therapist convinced them any physical therapist could teach the class, but no one would be more effective than actual amputees who had transitioned from physical therapy to gold medal Paralympians. Since then, they've trained more than 12,000 amputees to walk and run.

Linda McKinney, a senior physical therapist at the rehabilitation institute and an event coordinator, said they bring the clinic back every quarter because it's proven beneficial for clients.

"These guys are so motivating," she says. "They tell a story about how bad they had it, how hard their therapists were on them. They show how to do something, and instantly the patients want to get up and try it.

Many North Carolina legislators, lawyers oppose deaf jurors

From The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. The National Association of the Deaf provides transcripts of what N.C. legislators said about the issue of deaf jurors.

The House voted to send back to committee a bill meant to bring the state's procedure on seating deaf jurors into compliance with federal law.

State law has been contrary to the Americans with Disabilities Act because it says deaf jurors cannot be seated as jurors. In practice, the Administrative Office of the Courts has advised judges and other court officials to allow deaf people to remain in jury pools and to have an interpreter assigned to them.

Opponents of the bill, primary lawyers, have expressed concern that the bill could force lawyers to seat a deaf juror.

"if you're going to be in court and you're going to have your case heard, you want to make sure you're being heard," said Rep. Bill Faison, an Orange County Democrat.

Faison said his concern was over whether the change would force a lawyer to use one of their limited supply of peremptory challenges that allow a lawyer to reject a juror for any reason.

Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said opponents were making much out of a bill that needed to pass.

"This is simply a conforming change that we're required to do since our state has been out of compliance and illegal under the ADA," Glazier said.

NFB opposes accessible crosswalk in Lawrence, Kan.

From The University Daily Kansan:

Crosswalk signals should be seen and not heard.

That’s the sentiment the local area chapter of the National Federation of the Blind plans to express in an upcoming meeting with city officials August 15. Their concern is the recently installed Accessible Pedestrian Signal at the intersection of Sixth and Massachusetts Streets.

The city installed the automated voice APS in April after a blind citizen requested it in writing for the northeast crosswalk at the intersection.

Jim Canaday, vice president of the Douglas County Area Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, said the APS was hurting citizens who were blind more than helping them.

“A blind person who is travelling independently uses his or her ears to tell when its time to cross and when it’s safe to cross,” Canaday said.

He said the traffic light may turn green but someone may be doing a right turn on red or may not be stopping on a red light. The automated noise masks the vital information he and other blind individuals use to keep themselves from being hit by a car, Canaday said.

Currently, an automated voice repeats the phrase “Crosswalk is on” when the walking signal turns on at the intersection.

Accessible Pedestrian Signals have been mass marketed since the mid-1970s for use in the U.S. as well as in parts of Europe and Asia, according to the National Cooperative Highway Research Project. The types of APS models available range from chirping and beeping noises to automated voices to vibrating surfaces, all of which are designed to provide additional information to the blind community. Canaday disagrees.

“It also gives a negative image about blind people,” Canaday said. “The general public see that signal and they think that blind people need that.”

Kayla Richardson, Wichita sophomore, is blind said she had used the crosswalks that had APS devices that beeped when the walk signal was on, but only every once in a while.

“I think they are useful but sometimes they can’t be as reliable,” Richardson said.

Richardson said that although she also preferred using her ears to determine when it was safe to cross streets, she did not agree with the NFB’s stance on the issue of the APS.

David Woosley, a traffic engineer for the city Lawrence, said this was the first time the city had received this kind of accessibility request, but said that his department was aware of the type of equipment available. He said he had heard from the individual who made the request that it did make crossing the street easier at that particular intersection.

Canaday said he had no ill will toward the city and said he believed they were doing a good thing in accommodating a citizen’s request.

“It surprises a lot of people that the organized blind people are opposed to this and have been fighting this for years,” Canaday said.

Moto X Super X Adaptive sports winner defends his title at X Games 15 in LA

From the Los Angeles Times Outposts blog:

Chris Ridgway has become an unintentional inspiration to many.

But don't remind him of that. He's just doing what he enjoys, and if it motivates others, so be it.

It's not just his riding abilities that inspire people, but also his positive attitude.

Chris is an amputee, and competes wearing a prosthetic left leg.

The Apple Valley resident will be defending his title in the Moto X Super X Adaptive event July 31 at the Home Depot Center as part of X Games 15. The final will be televised on ESPN between 5-8 p.m.

Sustaining severe injuries to both legs in 1995 after a motorcycle malfunction during a practice session, Chris was rushed to the emergency room.

"The doctors told me that they would have to amputate the first night I was in the hospital, and I begged them not to; to give me a chance because I heal well," Chris, 38, said.

He left the hospital with both legs, but still suffered.

"I was in tremendous pain and still racing," he said. "In 1999 I had the points lead in the U.S. Hot Rod Off-Road Series and my leg broke again. I ended up finishing third in points."

Chris was confined to a wheelchair for the better part of two years, except for when competing and wearing the riding boots that helped stabilize his leg. But he stayed positive.

"I never got down. I was racing and knew what I was getting into."

Doctors told Ridgway that he would have to change his lifestyle, as every step he took caused agonizing pain.

When at an event in Phoenix, Chris saw what he wanted to do, thanks to a delivery person in the pits.

"I was sitting with a fellow racer and we saw this Budweiser delivery guy. My buddy points to him and says, 'That's what you need.' I thought he was talking about the keg of beer until I noticed he [the delivery man] was wearing a full prosthesis. It woke me up when I noticed that he was walking better than I had been in five years."

"I started asking doctors to amputate and they wouldn't. I basically was on the last doctor and threatened to take it off myself by shooting myself in the foot in their parking lot, because I didn't want to spend my life on pain medication."

The doctor agreed to do as Chris requested, without his resorting to the drastic measure. His left leg was amputated in 2002.

Ridgway continued racing, even though he didn't have the money to buy a prosthesis, landing a job racing cars for Emory Motorsports in Oregon. Team members did some research and told Chris about Limbs for Life, a nonprofit organization that buys prosthetic limbs for amputees who can't afford them.

"Thanks to Limbs for Life, I've been able to reach my goals both personally and professionally," Ridgway said.

"I spend time talking to people on the fence and try to help them out. I'd like to be more of a counselor to those who have also lost limbs. It's a very big mental hurdle, but motocross prepped me pretty well for it because it's like just another injury and not that big a deal."

Chris certainly sounds like a motivational speaker, but doesn't like lofty titles thrown his way.

"I get a little tired of the word 'inspirational' directed toward me, because I don't feel I should be put on a pedestal. I just want to help people get through it. My goal is to show doctors and others that it is a quality of life issue, and that they shouldn't be so hesitant to amputate."

Chris continues to be successful in his racing career. He just won the Extremity Games for the third consecutive year, and after the X Games he'll be racing for the Trent Fabrication team in an off-road truck race in Grand Junction, Colo.

Chris doesn't let anything slow him down, nor does he have any trepidation.

"Showering is the most dangerous thing I do these days."

New Zealand blind chef opens gourmet pie shop

From The Rodney Times in New Zealand:

Blind baking is something Stanmore Bay’s Michael Erasmus, 22, does daily.

Michael is fully blind in one eye, and has 5 percent vision in the other.

But that hasn’t stopped him graduating from the North Shore International Academy, or opening his own gourmet pie shop in Whangaparaoa.

In April Michael was the first blind person to graduate with a Culinary Arts and Professional Cookery National Certificate from the North Shore academy.

His dream didn’t stop there.

"My dad and I heard a lot about how Georgie Pie was trying to get their licence back from McDonald’s, and how people were complaining there were no pie places around.

"That’s where the idea came from."

Michael compiled six recipes for gourmet family-sized pies and has Rodney District Council approval to open his new business in Stanmore Bay.

"I’ve always loved cooking. I loved every minute of it at the academy.

"The biggest challenge was teaching myself how to handle knives, and the visual part of food was difficult.

"I struggled to cut things in the same shape and thickness at the start, but I practised a lot and got it right in the end."

Michael has been living on the Hibiscus Coast with his family for nine years and went to KingsWay School and Orewa College.

With his first six basic recipes, Michael’s pies are 1.1kg and made from fresh ingredients, no monosodium glutamate, food colour, enhancers or preservatives.

"There’s steak and kidney, steak and mushroom, mince and cheese, smoked chicken, chicken veloute and a vegetarian pie. It’s all real food and quality is my focus," says Michael.

Businesses can call in before 10am on the day and place a bulk order for staff members to take home after they finish work. Or people can phone in to place their own order at least an hour before pick-up.

Amputee sailor trying to row the Atlantic has to give up on quest

From BBC News:

A Falklands war veteran who lost a leg in a mine explosion has abandoned his record-breaking attempt to row the Atlantic Ocean after being rescued.

John Mollison, 49, from Perth, was helped by coastguards and an oil rig support vessel after thick fog knocked out his communications systems.

Technical problems also left him with no way to generate power.

He set off from Massachusetts on 5 July with the aim of being the first amputee to row the ocean west to east.

Mr Mollison planned to row about 3,500 miles to Britain and wanted to return to Perth via the Forth and Clyde canal and ultimately the River Tay.

The start of his trip had already been delayed because of poor weather in the USA.

He was raising money for the British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association (Blesma).

A statement on the website following his adventure states: "It is with regret that I confirm that Molly's quest has been ended.

"In dense fog, in the deep of the night and rough seas, all communications were lost with no way to generate power due to technical malfunctions.

"This left us in a suicidal situation to think about continuing as the boat could not be seen and with no communications a decision was made between the team, the Falmouth and Canadian coastguards to start a rescue mission with the aid of an oil rig support vessel.

"With the use of their radars Molly was located and made safe."

Britain sees increase in those killed by someone with a mental illness

From BBC News:

The number of people killed by those with a mental illness increased between 1997 and 2005, official figures show.

The National Confidential Inquiry reported while 54 people were killed in England and Wales in 1997, this had risen to over 70 in both 2004 and 2005.

It was murders by people who were not under mental health care which accounted for the increase.

The head of the inquiry said the report must be kept "in perspective", but that the rise needed to be investigated.

The research, which was funded by the National Patient Safety Agency, was carried out by University of Manchester researchers.

It found that the number of suicides among in-patients had by 2006 fallen to its lowest level since data collection began in 1997 - from 219 to 141.

But there were nonetheless hundreds of suicides over that period among patients who had left a ward without permission.

The majority of these were open wards, although there were cases of patients absconding from secure units and then killing themselves.

There were no homicides by people who had absconded from secure units in the nine years to 2005.

There was however an increase in the number of perpetrators with symptoms of mental illness at the time of the killing, but not in mental health care.

These symptoms included hypomania, depression, delusions and other psychotic manifestations. Of those who were psychotic, nearly 80% had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The inquiry noted a rise in the number of homicides by people with schizophrenia - from 25 in 1997 to 46 in 2004.

Professor Louis Appleby, Director of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness, said: "There has been an unexplained rise in the number of homicides by people with mental illness and we now have to try to understand why this has happened.

"It is important to emphasise that the increase has not occurred in mental health patients. It is also important to keep these findings in perspective.

"The risk of being a victim of homicide in England and Wales is around 1 in 1,000 and the risk of being killed by someone with schizophrenia is around 1 in 20,000."

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said: "We are concerned by the disturbing increase in the number of people with severe mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, who commit homicide.

"While such cases are extremely rare in comparison with the general population, we believe many could be prevented if mental health services provided better care and treatment.

"These figures illustrate yet again the way in which the care in the community policy can fail to protect both patients and the public.

"In many cases known to us, the person with mental illness had shown all the warning signs before the tragedy and the families' pleas gone unheeded."

Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind: "Homicides by people with mental health problems are very rare, and account for only a small proportion of all homicides - contrary to the stereotypes, figures show that you have as much chance of being hit by lightning as being killed by a stranger with a mental health problem.

"Although such tragic incidents do occur, there has been no increase in homicides by people who are in touch with mental health services, or receiving treatments.

The stigma around mental health can stop people from asking for help, and this only stresses the importance of ensuring people feel they can come forward when in distress, and seek support."

Program empowers parents of children with disabilities

From a University of Vermont news release:

When Stephanie Deffinbaugh's five-year-old daughter Kristyn was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, the North Carolina parent felt a wave of relief that her child's inability to recognize letters wasn't due to laziness or bad parenting.

The feeling was short lived. After four years of confrontation with her local school district, which refused to provide services for dyslexic students, Deffinbaugh finally sought refuge at the Exceptional Children's Assistance Center, the state's federally funded parent center. There, a parent educator guided her through the complex world of special education law, helping her understand her daughter's rights.

"School administrators don't fear angry parents," says Deffinbaugh, who, armed with new information and a new attitude, was able to obtain the services Kristyn was due. "They fear knowledgeable, positive ones."

That insight is at the core of a U.S. Department of Education-funded program called Parents as Collaborative Leaders, developed by Katharine Shepherd and Susan Hasazi, faculty members in the University of Vermont's College of Education and Social Services, and Paula Goldberg of the PACER Center in Minneapolis, which is earning national notice.

The program — the product of a five-year, $900,000 grant that will formally run its course this fall — has turned a cadre of 25 parents of children with disabilities, including Deffinbaugh, into grass roots change agents, helping families in low-income communities around the country become more effective advocates for their special needs children.

It has also become a model program, complete with downloadable teaching materials, that represents the hope of every researcher: its impact promises to live on beyond the grant.

It's ironic that there is a need for a program that puts parents of children with disabilities back into the educational planning process, given the origins of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, the landmark legislation that guaranteed all children a "free and appropriate education." The 1975 legislation was the product of a civil rights movement of parent pressure, years in the making.

What crowded parents out, says Shepherd, the principal investigator on the grant, was the rise of the very profession that was designed to help their children.

Prior to 1975 special education was a fledgling field, she says. The discipline has "obviously been a good thing in a lot of ways, but there was such a rapid rise to professionalism, parents tended to get left out."

To many people, including the majority of special educators (Shepherd trains special ed teachers at UVM) that now seems like a mistake.

Parents bring passion, commitment, and in-depth personal knowledge of their child's disability to the table that immeasurably enhance the work of professionals, says Shepherd.

Schools may have backed away from parent involvement for another reason, too: their relationship with families is often fraught.

"When you're the parent of an exceptional child, there's a lot of raw emotion that can be very unpleasant," says Deffinbaugh. "I burned bridges in a lot of areas."

Helping parents learn communications and leadership skills that allow them to tap their emotions, but also transcend them in important ways, is at the heart of Parents as Collaborative Leaders.

The program has two components: an intensive, three-day training, attended both by parents and by the mentor each is assigned, followed by a year long internship the parent and mentor develop together.

The three-day training is packed with information — part of it is a crash course on IDEA — and with exercises that emphasize listening, teamwork, and empathy and build skills such as conflict resolution and meeting management, all designed to move parents from a mindset of confrontation to one of collaboration. The internship places participants in the middle of a professional setting, complete with real life challenges, where they can practice their new skills and deeply absorb all the relevant information.

Perhaps the most significant part of the program is the confidence it builds in participants that they can be leaders.

They come out saying "I'm more assertive and more collaborative," says Shepherd. "I'm less afraid to ask for things, but I have the skills to do it in a more collaborative way."

At the center of the teaching is a counterintuitive lesson: the less parents think only of their own child, "of their own personal beef, of some injustice being done to them or their child," as Shepherd puts it, in favor of a perspective that incorporates the larger issues, the more likely administrators will be to listen.

The experience is especially valuable for the underrepresented and low-income parents for whom the program was designed, Shepherd says.

"It's one thing for a professional parent who may use these same kinds of skills at work to know how to go do it at a school," says Shepherd. "It's a different thing for a parent who hasn't had that experience to know what to do in a school or in another setting."

Parents as Collaborative Leaders is studded with success stories. One alumnus from the Sacramento area, for instance, organized parents to successfully lobby for state legislation that helped mainstream autistic children in California. Another, from Salt Lake City, organized a support group for the Learning Disabilities Association of Utah, later becoming chapter president and bringing an international learning disability conference to the state. And, generally speaking, the tenets and practices of the program have been institutionalized in the organizations — mostly parent centers — that graduates have been affiliated with.

But the most compelling testimony to the program's value and potential lasting impact are the ways in which new organizations are seeing its promise and funding new trainings.

Connie Hawkins, Deffinbaugh's mentor and the executive director of the Exceptional Children's Assistance Center, where she now works, recently received funding from the North Carolina Department of Public Health to create a program modeled on Parents as Collaborative Leaders for families of North Carolina pre-school children with disabilities.

Another alum, Jeannette Christie (pictured), who directs the New York City chapter of the National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments, and her mentor also received funding to clone the program, targeting it to parents of visually handicapped children scattered throughout New York's five boroughs. Shepherd and Hasazi assisted with the initial training, and Christie is now mentoring participants for the internship phase of the project.


Shepherd was recently asked by the National Deaf Blind Project to train 100 parents of children who are deaf and blind in September and has a growing list of other requests.

Then there's the Parents as Collaborative Leaders website4, which houses all the teaching and training materials created for the program. The materials have been downloaded more than 500 times.

Connie Hawkins, who calls Parents as Collaborative Leaders one of the most effective parent education programs she's experienced in 25 years in the field, isn't surprised by all the interest.

"Historically, parent leadership programs have provided mostly content knowledge with little or no skill development," she says. "What's exceptional about this program is that graduates have both the content and the skill to use it."

According to Shepherd, a program like Parents is long overdue, helping counter the learned helplessness special education has unintentionally inculcated in parents over the field's 30-year history.

"We've inadvertently taken away some of the power and expertise that parents have in their relationship with special educators," she says. "This project has helped to bring that sense of empowerment back. When parents feel like, 'Oh I can do this, I'm smart, I have skills, I can talk with these school people,' then suddenly they feel empowered, and when they know that they can also do it in a collaborative way and actually get better results, that's just a good feeling and a win-win."

C-section anesthesia doesn't increase risk of learning disabilities, new study says

From MedPage:

TORONTO -- Anesthesia during a cesarean delivery is not associated with an increased risk of learning disabilities compared with vaginal birth, researchers said.

The finding -- from a population-based birth cohort -- suggests that brief exposure to anesthetics during birth has no long-term neurodevelopmental consequences, according to Juraj Sprung, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues.

Indeed, in an unexpected finding, regional anesthesia during cesarean was associated with a lower risk of learning disabilities compared with vaginal birth, Dr. Sprung and colleagues said in the August issue of Anesthesiology.

One possible explanation for that observation, they said, is that cesarean delivery with regional anesthesia "attenuates the neonatal stress response to vaginal delivery that in turn has significant effects on later neural development."

But Dr. Sprung and colleagues cautioned that more study is needed to confirm or refute the observation. He noted that the apparent protective effect could well be a marker for unknown factors that influence learning disabilities.

Even so, "it's reassuring that the anesthetics required for cesarean delivery do not appear to cause long-term brain problems," Dr. Sprung said in a statement.

The issue has been of concern, since animal studies have shown that anesthetics can cause degenerative changes when applied to the young brain.

In addition, the same researchers recently showed that repeated exposure to anesthesia and surgery before the age of 4 was associated with an increased risk of learning disabilities.

To clarify the issue, Dr. Sprung and colleagues turned to the educational and medical records of all children born to mothers residing in five townships of Olmsted County, Minn., from 1976 through 1982 and who were still in the community at age 5.

All told, the cohort consisted of 5,320 children, of whom 193 were delivered by cesarean under general anesthesia and 304 by cesarean under regional anesthesia.

Within the group, 921 children were diagnosed with a learning disability before the age of 19, the researchers found.

Among those delivered vaginally, the cumulative incidence of learning disabilities was 20.8%, compared with 19.4% for those whose mothers received general anesthesia for cesarean delivery and 15.4% for those whose mothers had a regional anesthetic for cesarean delivery.

In an unadjusted proportional hazard regression, the incidence of learning disabilities did not differ significantly across the three modes of delivery, the researchers said.

But the pairwise comparison of vaginal birth with cesarean delivery and regional anesthetic yielded a hazard ratio of 0.73, which was significant at P=0.046.

After adjusting for sex, birth weight, gestational age, exposure to anesthesia between birth and age 4, and maternal education, the pattern was similar -- little difference across all three modes, but a hazard ratio of 0.64 for the pairwise comparison of cesarean delivery and regional anesthetic with vaginal delivery.

The researcher noted that the study was retrospective, which has inherent limitations, and was unable to account for all possible confounders.

They added that the birth cohort included mainly Caucasian children, which may limit how widely the findings apply.

The study was supported by the Mayo Clinic and the NIH. The researchers did not report any conflicts.

Georgia teen's death highlights lack of regulations at "psychoeducational" schools

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Tina King always asked her son Jonathan (pictured) about his day at the Alpine Program, a public school in Gainesville for students with behavioral problems. Jonathan would answer with the indifferent shrug of adolescence. “It was school,” he would say.

Jonathan, 13, never mentioned the stark 8-by-8 concrete-block room where he spent hours alone, locked up for misbehaving. Alpine called it the time-out room, and it offered neither distraction nor stimulation. No windows. No furniture. No bathroom. No food. No water.

Teachers placed Jonathan there 19 times over 29 days in the fall of 2004. His average confinement: 94 minutes.

On Nov. 15, 2004, as was his habit, Jonathan came to school not wearing a belt. A teacher gave him a multicolored rope to keep his pants from drooping. Soon, teachers placed Jonathan in the time-out room and, although he had twice threatened suicide, allowed him to keep the rope — the rope he then used to hang himself.

Jonathan’s death called attention to a little-known component of Georgia’s public school system: “psychoeducational” facilities such as Alpine that teach only students who are emotionally disturbed, autistic or so brain-injured that regular schools can’t control their behavior.

Nationally, more and more such children are being taught in regular classrooms, educators say. Georgia, however, continues to provide a separate education to about 5,600 students with disabilities through its network of 24 psychoeducational schools.

State education officials describe the psychoeducational schools as one of many programs that provide services to students with behavioral disorders and other disabilities. The schools, officials said, offer an alternative to far more expensive residential treatment institutions.

“It allows these students to be educated in their communities,” said Kim Hartsell, director of special education supports for the Georgia Department of Education. “It also is a cost-effective way of educating students with severe emotional disorders.”

But some parents and the Education Department’s own inspectors have questioned the schools’ disciplinary tactics, especially physical restraint and seclusion. Georgia is one of 19 states that do not regulate restraint and seclusion in schools, a recent federal study found. Unlike jails, for instance, or psychiatric hospitals, Georgia schools don’t have to report when they subject students to those techniques, or why.

“As isolated centers, they’re just archaic,” said Jonathan Zimring, an Atlanta lawyer who has represented families of students at psychoeducational schools. “They’re essentially lawless.”

And, as Jonathan King’s parents have learned, no one seems to be accountable for how the schools treat students.

The Kings, who live in Murrayville, sued the Education Department and the Pioneer Regional Educational Service Agency, a government body that operates Alpine for 14 Northeast Georgia school districts, alleging they violated Jonathan’s civil rights by failing to protect him during his confinement. Through its lawyer, Phil Hartley, Pioneer contends it was “not responsible or negligent in any way.” In court papers, both the state and regional agencies denied liability, asserting they had no “affirmative duty” to prevent Jonathan’s suicide.

A judge in Hall County Superior Court agreed. But even as he dismissed the lawsuit, the judge suggested school employees acted with negligence. The Kings have asked the state Court of Appeals to overturn the dismissal.

“Apparently, they don’t care,” said Don King, Jonathan’s father. “They locked that child up in that room for hours at a time and didn’t tell us. It’s hard to tell how many other kids are getting the same treatment.”

In the Georgia of the 1960s, emotionally disturbed children who acted up in class often were simply expelled, even from special education programs.

A group of University of Georgia professors came up with an alternative: a special school that would mix therapy with instruction while using innovative methods to suppress severe behavioral disorders. The first psychoeducational school in Georgia opened in Athens in 1970.

Two years later, the General Assembly created the Georgia Psychoeducational Network, which would grow to two dozen facilities across the state. (The state discarded the original name in 2007 in favor of the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support.)

“They were created from a good place, to fill a gap in the system,” said Zimring, who represents disabled people but has no role in the King case. “The problem is that was 1972. This is 37 years later. They have been maintained without a clear definition of who should be in there.”

The schools endure in Georgia even as many states de-emphasize special education programs that segregate students, according to educators, child psychologists and children’s advocates.

“The trend definitely is toward more and more inclusive placements,” said Mary Beth Klotz, a projects director with the National Association of School Psychologists. Many educators, she said, now recognize that children with disabilities or behavioral problems benefit from “having an opportunity to better access the general education curriculum.”

Federal law requires schools to educate students with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment,” preferrably a classroom with students who are not disabled. The law considers a separate school, or even a separate classroom, appropriate only in extreme circumstances.

Complaints about Georgia’s psychoeducational schools emerge from reports of inspections by the Education Department and legal challenges filed by parents: inadequate classroom instruction, abusive treatment by teachers and other school employees, and an over-reliance on restraint and seclusion as disciplinary techniques.

In April, state inspectors visited Harrell Learning Program, the psychoeducational school in Waycross. The school’s policies, inspectors reported, call for placing students in seclusion only for physical attacks, self-injury or property destruction. In reality, inspectors said, Harrell locked up students for “far less severe” behaviors, such as “throwing milk and spitting” and “avoiding work.” One student was placed in seclusion for two days, records show, “until he decides he is ready to try and change his behaviors that got him in trouble.”

In Atlanta, Zimring represented the parents of a 10-year-old with autism who attended the North Metro psychoeducational school. Suspecting that their son, who can’t speak, was receiving little instruction and was being mistreated, the parents sewed a tape recorder into his shirt one day last October. The boy came home with torn pants and marks from an apparent spanking. He also had a recording that confirmed his parents’ fears.

At one point, an unidentified adult asked the boy, “Do you want a hit, a be-quiet hit?”

An adult told another student, “Sit down, stupid.”

The classroom teacher could be heard on the tape — now part of a court record — discussing how to mix martinis, describing her boyfriend’s penis, and ridiculing the boy for eating pizza out of the trash.

A judge ordered the Atlanta Public Schools to pay the boy’s tuition at a private school.

Jonathan King’s behavioral problems began early. In kindergarten, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and began a regimen of prescription medications.

“They couldn’t keep him in his desk,” Tina King, his mother, said. “He would talk out in class. He would get in fights.”

By the sixth grade, Jonathan’s teachers and counselors decided it was time for another approach: the Alpine school.

At Alpine, school officials told Tina that classes were small, meaning fewer distractions to tempt Jonathan from completing his work and more one-on-one time with teachers.

Disruptive students, Tina says she was told, went to a “time-out room.” She thought of the time-outs she imposed at home, making Jonathan sit still for five or 10 minutes when he misbehaved.

“I had no idea,” she said recently, “that it meant being locked in a room, hours on end, where you can’t get out. I never could have dreamed that.”

Jonathan was in eighth grade in the fall of 2004. He never complained about school, his parents say, never told them anything other than he had occasionally gone to “time out.”

The Kings’ lawyers, though, eventually learned the extent of Jonathan’s understatement.

A log book for Alpine’s seclusion room showed Jonathan was confined part or all of 15 school days between August and November, sometimes twice in one day. Over two consecutive days in October, Jonathan spent 15 hours in seclusion. The first day, Jonathan ripped the hem from his shirt and wrapped it around his neck in a suicidal gesture. The next day, the log says, he was “threatening to kill himself.”

Rather than using the seclusion room only as a last resort to get the boy under control, the log suggests it became a place where teachers sometimes placed Jonathan for minor infractions. On Oct. 26, 2004, for instance, Jonathan was “cussing, argumentative and disruptive during testing; demanding water bottle be filled; swearing; [and refusing] to follow instructions,” the log says. He spent seven hours, 10 minutes in the seclusion room that day. Ten days later, on Nov. 5, Jonathan was locked up for five hours, 50 minutes after he “refused to accept feedback.”

Alpine never told Jonathan’s parents about any of the seclusions. It didn’t have to. In court papers, Alpine contends the state’s lack of regulation gave it implicit authority to use seclusion as it saw fit.

While Georgia has no laws or rules governing seclusion and restraint in public schools, 31 states and the District of Columbia have restricted the practices, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Arkansas and Maryland, for example, require a school employee to watch a student in seclusion at all times. Illinois and Tennessee ban locking doors to seclusion rooms. North Carolina allows seclusion only to prevent imminent harm.

“You can’t lock up an adult without due process of law,” said one of the Kings’ lawyers, Wyc Orr of Gainesville. But in Georgia, “schools have utterly unregulated power to lock up a child seven to eight hours a day without even notifying the parents.”

Jonathan hated belts. When he played football with friends, his father recalls, he used one hand to carry the ball, the other to hold up his pants.

So it was not unusual when Jonathan arrived at Alpine without a belt on Nov. 15, 2004. A teacher handed him a rope and told him to wear it.

About 9:25 that morning, school records show, Jonathan fought with another student. He was “cussing, combative, out of control,” a school employee noted. Jonathan was small for his age: 4-foot-10, 84 pounds. But it took two teachers to escort him to a familiar destination: the seclusion room.

When they closed the metal door, Jonathan still had the rope around his waist.

The only portal to the outside was a small square window in the door, covered by paper on the exterior and a metal grille inside. Graffiti covered the door: vulgar messages scratched into the paint by previous occupants. Pencil drawings and scuff marks marred the walls.

During his first 15 minutes in seclusion that day, school records show, Jonathan beat on the door, yelled, cursed and sang. A teacher sitting outside the seclusion room told him he had to stay calm for 15 minutes before he could be released. After 35 minutes, the teacher noted that Jonathan had become “quiet” and “non-threatening.”

On the other side of the door, Jonathan had removed the rope from his pants. He looped one end through the metal grille bolted into place over the window.

In the middle of the rope, he tied a slip knot, fashioning a noose.

When they saw the results of investigations of Jonathan’s suicide by the Gainesville police and their lawyers, the Kings were shocked by what they had not known: that “time out” meant confinement in a locked room, that Jonathan had missed days of instruction while in seclusion, that he had threatened to take his life just three weeks before he actually did so.

“People send their kids to school thinking they’re going to be safe,” Don King said. “Apparently, you don’t know whether they’re going to be safe or not.”

Almost five years after Jonathan died, Alpine still operates in the rear of an old school building on Gainesville’s south side. State school officials have developed non-binding guidelines for the seclusion and restraint of special education students, and may impose regulations later this year.

For the Kings, life without Jonathan remains difficult and filled with reminders. In recent weeks, the couple attended a court hearing on their lawsuit and sat for a long interview. On July 13, they marked what would have been a milestone in Jonathan’s life.

His 18th birthday.

U.S. kids are healthier, safer than ever

From USA Today:

Here's some welcome news for the parents of America: You're doing a great job.

Although exhausted moms and dads may not hear it often enough, research shows that their devotion is paying off. In dozens of important ways, kids are far healthier and safer today than they were even a generation ago. "Things are tremendously safer now for our children than they were for us, and they continue to improve each year," says pediatric trauma surgeon David Mooney, director of the trauma program at Children's Hospital Boston.

In the past century, the infant mortality rate has declined with each generation, falling from 29 deaths per 1,000 births in 1950 to 13 deaths per 1,000 births in 1980 to just under seven deaths per 1,000 births today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Babies are more likely to survive for many reasons, from cleaner water to vaccines, antibiotics, good prenatal care and better nutrition.

And kids of all ages are benefiting from a wealth of new research, as well as the safety laws and better products based on those research findings.

Death rates from unintentional injuries among children under 19 have dropped nearly 50% since 1981, from 27 deaths per 100,000 children in 1981 to 14 per 100,000 in 2005, according to the CDC.

"Tens of thousands of children are alive today because of the effort that everybody has made, including loving parents," says Alan Korn, executive director of Safe Kids USA, a non-profit advocacy group.

That's a relief to moms like Nikki DeLaTorre (pictured), a mother of four who says she sometimes struggles to keep up with the latest guidelines. All that parenting advice — whether it comes from a well-informed pediatrician or uninformed busybody — can be overwhelming, she says.

"When you become a mom, you become scared to death," says DeLaTorre, 33, of Oak Park, Calif. "People are quick to tell you when you're doing something wrong. But it means so much to you when someone says, 'You're a good mom.' "

WHAT PARENTS DO RIGHT

Progress in key areas:

Breast feeding

• 77% of mothers initiated breast feeding in 2005-06 vs. 54% in 1986-88.

More women are breast feeding today than a generation ago, show stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Breast milk provides antibodies to help babies fight infections. It reduces the risk of infections of the ear, lung and gastrointestinal tract. Breast-fed babies also have lower rates of SIDS, diabetes, obesity and even leukemia, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.

Safe sleeping

• 151 cases of sudden infant death syndrome per 100,000 children in 1979 vs. 55 cases per 100,000 in 2004.

Most parents now put their babies to sleep on their backs, which has helped to cut the death rate from SIDS, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

FOLLOW UP: For strong babies, make playtime 'tummy time'

Vaccinating

• About 77% of children ages 19 to 35 months received all recommended vaccinations in 2007 and 90% were vaccinated against chickenpox.

Vaccines have nearly eliminated deaths from diphtheria, mumps, pertussis and tetanus, polio, measles and rubella, according to the CDC. Newer vaccines, approved since 1980, have reduced the number of deaths from hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae, or Hib, and chickenpox, by 80% or more. And thanks to one of the newest vaccines, approved in 2000, deaths from invasive pneumococcal disease have fallen 25%.

"Giving vaccines is one of the most important ways that parents can keep their children safe," says infectious-disease expert Joseph Bocchini.

VACCINATIONS: Whooping cough returns in kids as parents skip shots
Reducing birth defects

• About 38% of all women ages 18 to 45 took a folic acid supplement last year vs. 25% in 1995.

More women today are taking folic acid to reduce the risk of birth defects such as spina bifida, which can cause paralysis, according to the CDC. The USA also began fortifying grain cereal products with folic acid in 1998. The next year, the prevalence of spina bifida dropped 31%.

Staying smoke-free

•33%-40% of married pregnant women smoked in 1967 vs. 10% in 2005.

More women today are giving up tobacco while pregnant, says CDC researcher Van Tong.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE: Some moms resume use after pregnancy

Making homes safer

Manufacturers and lawmakers have made key changes, too.

•Thanks to stronger building codes, the water heaters in new homes and apartments now have a maximum temperature of 120 degrees to prevent scalding, according to Safe Kids.

•Injuries from baby walkers — which help babies stand up — have fallen 88% since the early 1990s, from 25,700 a year to 3,100 annually today, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Many parents no longer buy walkers because of the risk that babies will fall down stairs.

•Deaths from crib accidents have fallen 84% since 1973, decreasing from 200 deaths a year to 30, largely because of safety improvements, the CPSC says.

•Thanks to childproof caps, accidental poisonings have fallen more than 80% since the early 1970s, when 216 children died each year, the CPSC says.

A new generation of deaf actors takes on "Children of a Lesser God"

From Evan Henerson's column, LA Stage Scene Examiner:

OK, so this is not exactly a homecoming, since the play in question was first produced before the nationally renowned Deaf West Theatre was even in existence.

Still, there’s a certain cosmic synchronicity about Deaf West Theatre producing a 30th anniversary revival of Mark Medoff’s “Children of a Lesser God” some 10-15 miles down the freeway from the Mark Taper Forum where Gordon Davidson’s Center Theatre Group first put Medoff - and to some extent theater of and for the deaf – on the map.

CTG’s production of “Children” told the story of a love affair between a hearing speech teacher James Leeds and his deaf student Sarah Norman. Performed in English and American sign language, the Taper production directed by Davidson, transferred to Broadway in 1982 and ran for two years, winning the 1980 Tony Award for Best Play. Stars John Rubinstein and Phyllis Frelich each won acting Tony awards as well. The 1986 movie won Marlee Matlin an Oscar.

Deaf West was founded in 1991 and has produced more than 30 plays and adaptations – for its deaf and hearing audiences. Of late, the company has made a name for itself with sign language adaptations of musicals such as “Big River,” “Pippin,” “Sleeping Beauty Wakes” and “Oliver.”

Frelich has performed regularly at Deaf West including stints in the world premier of Medoff’s “Road to a Revolution” in 2001 and in “Big River.” Rubinstein used to perform regularly in North Hollywood as well when his Interact Theatre Co. was based in NoHo, barely a block away from Deaf West’s home on Lankershim Boulevard. More recently, Rubinstein played an extended run as the Wizard in the sit down company of "Wicked" at the Pantages Theatre.

The current revival of "Lesser God," which plays Sept. 13 to Oct. 11, is directed by Jonathan Barlow Lee who was the stage manager for Davidson’s original production. Shoshannah Stern (pictured) and Matthew Jaeger will play Sarah Norman and James Leeds respectively.

How cool would it be if they could get Rubinstein, Frelich and Davidson all to be in the audience opening night.

Kansas parents protest cuts to Schools for the Deaf, the Blind

From the Kansas City Star:

Gay Jones watched her daughter Danielle become “more and more unhappy” and reclusive while attending public school in Blue Springs, Mo.

Although the school district had a program to help Danielle, who is deaf, it was difficult for her to communicate with her classmates and teachers and to develop intellectually in that learning environment, Jones said.

Jones sold her home and moved to Olathe so Danielle could attend the Kansas School for the Deaf.

“My daughter made a complete turnaround overnight,” Jones said.

Jones was one of several people who testified Monday before the Facilities Closure and Realignment Commission in Topeka.

The committee, established by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, is examining the possible closure or merger of several facilities around the state, including the Kansas School for the Deaf and Kansas School for the Blind in Kansas City, Kan.

Jones is hard of hearing and is learning to sign in American Sign Language.

“We love Olathe and the fact that there are people who can communicate and interact with us when we go somewhere,” she said.

She wants the committee to keep the school open and in Olathe.

Although Commission Chairwoman Rochelle Chronister told the audience the committee was more likely looking at realignment or other improvements rather than closure, those testifying wanted to make sure the committee understood the importance of the School for the Deaf and its cultural ties to Olathe.

“Olathe embraces its large deaf population,” said Ruth Ann Hackler a longtime Olathe residents. “Interpreters sign at public meetings, some church services, most forums as well as school productions.”

Hackler, when she was a state legislator, helped find funding to build Emery Hall, which is for preschool- and elementary-aged children on the school’s campus. She also dealt with educational issues for 22 years as a member of the Olathe school board, she said.

“What a shame it would be to eliminate this beautiful campus overlooking the heart of downtown Olathe,” Hackler said.

Commissioner Nile Dillmore, 92nd District House representative, said the problem is how to justify keeping both schools open on separate campuses when the schools serve a limited number of students in the state and a limited amount of state funding is available.

“The cost of having the facilities is higher than the need,” he said.

Kansas Secretary of Administration Duane Goossen told the commission that the state could balance its budget if revenue forecasts hold true. And that was only possible because Gov. Mark Parkinson recently approved $160 million in budget reductions and allotments and the state received federal stimulus money. Funds from the Federal Recovery Act will disappear, however, in the next three year years, making it more difficult for the state, Goossen said.

The state is looking at a deficit of $220 million to $230 million when federal dollars dry up in 2012, Goossen said.

The loss of federal dollars and a steady decline in state tax revenues has the state looking at every agency and school in the state.

Robert Maile, superintendent of the School for the Deaf, said one can’t view the school just by its numbers. Several of the children who attend have multiple disabilities and other deaf children only can flourish in such an environment.

Although national studies show no academic difference between a student who attends a public school with a program that helps the deaf and a student who attends a deaf school, the difference is seen in leadership abilities, coping skills and other factors a person must possess to become successful, Maile said.

Kansas has 650 children certified as deaf or hard of hearing. The School for the Deaf has 136 students enrolled and serves 385 students statewide through various outreach programs and operates on a budget of $9.698 million for fiscal year 2010.

Madeleine Burkindine, superintendent for Kansas School for the Blind, said the students who attend her school are some of the state’s most severe cases—they are completely blind and need help learning, coping and adjusting to society.

Kansas has 1,000 children who are vision impaired—665 are legally blind and the remaining children have various degrees of visual impairment. The school serves 70 students during the regular term and 50 students during its summer session on a budget of $6.52 million for fiscal year 2010.

During the budget and building facilities portion of the hearing, some commissioners asked questions as too the possibility of combining the two schools and asked about available space on the two campuses.

The School for the Deaf has 17 acres, 12 for educational purposes and five for athletics. About 22,000 square feet is unused and available, Maile said. There also are a couple of smaller buildings, built in the 1920s, that could be razed, he added.

The School for the Blind resides on 9.56 acres in Kansas City, Kan. The school has no available space, Burkindine said.

There is a three-story cottage that the school only uses the first floor, but the second and third stories are structurally unsound, Burkindine said.

The commission is expected to make a recommendation on the two schools by Dec. 1 to Parkinson and the Legislature.

Computer science professor tasks his students with making phones, computers more accessible to blind or deaf people

From Xconomy.com in Seattle:

Think about the technological tools you use most often. For many of us, cell phones and computers rank high up on that list. But these devices are designed with the hearing and sighted in mind, and are constantly evolving, so there are numerous hurdles to clear to make a phone or a computer usable to the blind or deaf.

The University of Washington’s Richard Ladner (pictured), along with his students in the computer science department, is using engineering and computational tools to work on several of these hurdles—and the commercial applications could have far-ranging impact.

“When you think about a person with a disability, such as a blind person, most people think that’s a medical problem,” he said in a recent interview. “Just restoring the human function may be a solvable problem, but probably not for a long time. But maybe there’s another way to get the same thing done, to allow a person to read a book or talk to their family. So thinking non-medically, as an engineer, there are other ways to solve these problems.”

Ladner, who was born to two deaf parents, also believes that technologies developed for the blind and deaf may eventually lead to broader technological advancements—not such a far-fetched idea, as it’s happened before. Mobile GPS was originally developed as an aid for the blind, Ladner said, as was optical character recognition, a technology developed in the 1960s to turn an image of text (such as a photo of a book page) into digital text, which would then be read out loud using speech synthesizers. Now, the same technology is ubiquitous in turning pictures of text into digital text;Google uses it to digitize books.

Ladner used to work on computational theory before shifting to accessible technology in 2002. He is now trying to take his oldest project on accessibility for the deaf, MobileASL, to the market. This project uses video compression technology to enable signing over video cell phones on low-bandwidth wireless networks (such as those in the U.S.). Currently, deaf people can’t reliably use video cell phones to communicate using sign language, because the videos are too choppy to be intelligible. Ladner and his colleagues are working with UW TechTransfer on commercializing MobileASL.

“We’re trying to get it out and get it in actual use,” he said. “It’s in high demand. I get hundreds of e-mails about it.”

Although designed with the deaf in mind, MobileASL could be used by anyone who wants better quality video phone calls, Ladner said. Bringing it to market is slightly complicated by the fact that wireless companies, cell phone manufacturers, and video relay service companies (who provide government-subsidized assistance to allow phone calls between a deaf person and a hearing person) all have to coordinate to some extent to make the technology work. Ladner’s group is in conversation with all three types of companies.

Even though there are only upwards of 1 million American Sign Language (ASL) users in the U.S., Ladner still believes the technology has the potential to succeed commercially. Similar services are already on the market in Sweden and Japan.

“There’s always this issue. Do you want something to be an iPhone-level success, or go into a smaller market and have a bigger impact there?” Ladner said. “Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs always think about the next iPhone, but I think there are a lot of smaller things with good markets too.”

The project that changed Ladner’s research focus to accessible technologies is the Tactile Graphics Project, which employs various technologies to emboss images (such as textbook figures), creating tactile “pictures” for the blind. One aspect of this project converts text within figures to braille or speech, and this technology could also be used to automatically translate figures that include text in one language into other languages. Ladner is also very excited about a project that one of his graduate students, Jeff Bigham, has spearheaded. WebInSight improves accessibility of the Web to the blind and includes the program WebAnywhere, which is software that converts the text on any website into speech.

Ladner’s newest project is an educational and social networking site for deaf students of math, science, and engineering. One component of the site is technology to allow better interpretation for deaf students in hearing classes, that would provide interpreters familiar with the subject material to transcribe lectures, and captions along with the presentation slides on a student’s laptop. There’s also a new organizational part of the site devoted to cataloging signs for science and technical terms that don’t yet exist in ASL. Currently, deaf students and their interpreters may invent signs for specialized terms, but there’s no way to communicate those new signs to the whole deaf community.

“It’s a way for the language to grow even though the people using the language are rather dispersed,” Ladner said.

Ladner said the big shift in his research focus after a relatively established career in computational theory is keeping him young. “Since I changed to accessible technology, I’m just in huge demand, I get phone calls every day,” he said. “It’s like there was something pent up there, a real need for this. Plenty of people are doing computational theory, but hardly anyone is doing this.”

Mental illness coupled with addiction rarely receives needed treatment

From The Washington Post. A longer feature accompanies this story and focuses on the life of Danny Watt, who had a dual diagnosis. His parents are pictured.

In the often separate worlds of mental health therapists and substance abuse counselors, professionals began realizing in the mid-1980s that large percentages of the people they were seeing -- sometimes 50 percent or more -- suffered from both mental illness and addiction to alcohol or drugs.

And treating just one affliction wasn't helping.

Hence the term "co-occurring disorders," or "dual diagnosis."

"All programs for people with severe mental disorders should be considered dual-diagnosis programs," wrote psychiatrist Robert E. Drake of the Dartmouth Medical School, one of the leading experts on co-occurring disorders. The federal government estimates that about 7 million U.S. adults suffer from co-occurring disorders and that more than 90 percent of those people are not getting the right treatment.

"We've got a long way to go," said H. Westley Clark, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. "The public should be concerned, because early intervention militates against florid conditions later."

"Changing the world is a slow process," said Kenneth Minkoff of Harvard Medical School, a psychiatrist who is training public agencies across the country, including Fairfax County, on how to handle dual-diagnosis clients. "This is kind of a recovery process for [mental health] systems. It's kind of like what the clients go through."

Fairfax County opened its first dual-diagnosis facility in 1989. Today the county has three dual-diagnosis residential centers, though the waiting list for a bed ranges from three months to a year, county officials said. Montgomery County opened a residential treatment center in 2003.

At Cornerstones, Fairfax's 16-bed residential treatment facility for men and women, a college-dorm-like setting provides structure (meetings, meals, "medication calls") and group activities but not heavy discipline. The doors are unlocked, and clients have the option of walking out. Stays can last as long as six months. Stores that sell alcohol are nearby.

The residents are adults and must make their own choices. "People relapse," said Melissa Anderson, the center's director. "But they come back the next day."

Anderson said, "The mix of substance abuse and mental health problems really does complicate things." Those with co-occurring disorders, she said, "end up being marginalized in society. Because they have mental illness, they can't handle alcohol or drugs. They get criminalized. They can't get housing, they can't get jobs. What's left for them?"

Aaron Scheidies reclaims his world champion title in NYC Paratriathlon

From Universal Sports:

Paratriathlon in the United States took a step forward at the Accenture USA Paratriathlon National Championships on Sunday.

The paratriathlon, which consists of six disability classifications including visual impairment, amputations and paraplegics, attracted 53 competitors in New York City. The number reflects the most participants in a paratri event in the world.

“(Sunday’s race) is the benchmark of paratri sport and competition,” Peter Harsch, athlete coordinator for the U.S. Paratriathlon Team, said this week by phone. “It’s not like back in the day when 13 athletes showed up and they said just do your thing. Race directors are starting to recognize, ‘wow, this is a group of athletes that are competing at a high level.’”

American Aaron Scheidies (pictured) showed race directors the high level of competition some paratriathletes provide. Scheidies, who is visually impaired, was the top paratriathlete in two hours 2:15, a time that would have placed him tenth in the elite age group field.

Scheidies’ time qualified him for a chance to reclaim his title of world champion. Paratriathletes qualified for the World Championships by finishing under four hours in Sunday’s race. The ITU Triathlon World Championships are in September in Australia.

“I’m going to go hardcore the next month,” Scheidies said regarding his training. He has won the World Championships in 2002, 2003 and 2006.

The 2008 world and U.S. champion JP Theberge successfully defended his championship in the below-the-knee amputee category, taking advantage of seamless transitions to beat four-time world champion Paul Martin by nearly three minutes in 2:13:17.

Oscar Sanchez, defending U.S. champion in the wheelchair division, was in hot pursuit of Theberge. Though he competes in the wheelchair division his goal was to beat the below-the-knee amputees.

Sanchez finished first in the wheelchair division in 2:14:30, but after passing Paul Martin and Rivaldo Martins, second and third respectively in the below-the-knee amputee division, he failed to catch Theberge.

Since a handcycle sits lower to the ground than a bicycle, Sanchez is forced to shout at able-bodied competitors warning them when he wants to pass.

“On the bike portion I must have yelled out ‘on your left’ like 600 times,” he said.

Weaving became more dangerous during the run for Sanchez, who uses a racing wheelchair. He moves through a 10k faster than most runners, and this year he refused to slow down.

“I had a few close calls. I ran over a couple of people’s toes, was up on two wheels (a racing chair has three wheels) a few times,” said Sanchez, who apologized to the runners during the phone interview.

Many officials and athletes involved in disabled sports believe that the elite performances in New York City demonstrate where the sport is heading.

“What we are seeing is that other triathlons recognize the draw from the paratriathletes, the numbers (of competitors) it is bringing,” Harsch said. “Any triathlon is going to want to bring great media and great stories to their venue.”

Up next for the world’s top paratriathletes is the World Invitational Paratriathlon August 15 in London. Many of the top American athletes, ncluding Scheidies and Sanchez, will compete in the sprint distance (300m swim, 10k bike, 3k run) held in conjunction with the Dextro Energy World Championship London.

Florida father charged with choking, beating his disabled son

From WESH-TV in Florida:

LAKE MARY, Fla. -- The father of a disabled 21-year-old man was arrested July 28 after police said he choked and beat his son.

John Giza, 57, a teacher at Indian Trails Middle School, was charged with felony battery, obstruction of an air way and abuse of a disabled adult.

After the son urinated in his pants, the 21-year-old said his dad stripped him down and started hitting him in the head with his soiled underwear. He said his dad shoved some type of rag in his mouth and he couldn't breathe.

"Struck his child in the head with the soiled underwear and used some type of a rag or a washcloth, placing it in his child's mouth and obstructing his normal air way," Lake Mary detective Matt Scheafer said.

The son told his school and mother in late May about the alleged incident. Although the mother has custody, Giza has regular visitation with his son on weekends. School officials contacted the Department of Child and Families after the son talked to them, DCF contacted police. An arrest was made only after consulting with the State Attorney's Office, police said.

Giza said nothing to WESH 2 cameras after his arrest.

The school district will investigate the case and decide Giza's professional future in mid-August. School is on break, so no immediate action is necessary.

Police have no evidence of issues between Giza and any of his students. He denies the incident.

According to the Mayo Clinic's Web site, cerebral palsy is a general term for a group of disorders that appear during the first few years of life and affect a child's ability to coordinate body movements. Cerebral palsy can cause muscles to be weak and floppy, or rigid and stiff. In Europe and the United States, cerebral palsy occurs in about two to four out of every 1,000 births.

Colorado rescue program supplies tracking devices so someone with Alzheimer's or an intellectual disability can be found

From Summit Daily News:

SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — A lost person with Alzheimer's or autism can be much more difficult to find than a misplaced hiker, and Summit County now has a service to prevent such unfortunate mishaps.

Summit County Rescue coordinator Joe Ben Slivka said situations with mental disorders are of “incredibly high urgency” because “it's different from somebody backpacking the Gore Range — somebody with the ability to feed ... and help themselves.”

Colorado Life Trak uses transmitters the size of wristwatches that the person wears at all times (pictured). If that person wanders off, the rescue group's transmitters can detect it from 4 to 5 miles away.

In addition, the transmitters are coded, making it much easier for the group to find the person's physical description and other important factors.

Summit County Ambulance Service deputy director Roger Coit said his service, the rescue group and Sheriff's Office partnered to get a roughly $10,000 grant to support the Life Trak service.

“We're really excited about this,” he said. “(It will) save hugely on clients' well-being and safety.”

The average search and recovery time for the service — which is used in several other Colorado areas — is less than 30 minutes, according to a press release from the ambulance service.

Other common conditions that qualify people for Life Trak include dementia, Down syndrome and Prader-Willi.

The grant from the Colorado Department of Public Safety included the transmitter bracelets, batteries and receivers.

Disabled Utahns lose cash assistance

From Deseret News:

The man stood behind his shopping cart filled with all his worldly possessions and looked, as he describes himself, "surprisingly sheveled for a guy whose every fear has come true."

As he tried to squint away the Tuesday afternoon sun and move from the nosy passerby who had interrupted his wait for a doctor's appointment outside the Fourth Street Clinic, he said, "Yup, I'll be losing that, too, here in a minute."

He doesn't mean the one good ankle he has left since he fell off scaffolding at work about a year ago. The accident led to at least four surgeries, steel screws, a permanent limp and ultimately a nasty MRSA staph infection that doctors finally stopped, he said, "when they cut off my leg" just below the knee.

What he means he'll be losing now is the $261 a month in state cash assistance that stops Saturday, Aug. 1.

"You can call me Crash," a nickname he says befits the course of his life and his interaction with the system that is set up to help people like him. "No, I don't want to give you my real name. Would you?"

He is one of the nameless, faceless 500 or so disabled Utahns on the verge of losing state cash assistance that makes up all or most of their incomes. The money serves as a bridge to newly disabled residents receiving federal Supplemental Security Income payments.

A coalition of community groups and churches have asked Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his apparent successor Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert to intervene. Members of the group said Tuesday that their call for an "urgent" meeting with the state's top executives has drawn no response other than claims by staff assistants that they weren't aware of the situation or that the letter had been lost in the shuffle between the two administrations. Herbert is to become governor when Huntsman becomes ambassador to China.

"I was told they never received the letter, even though I hand-carried a copy and gave it to them in person," Laine Gardinier, a Fourth Street Clinic governing-board member, told the Deseret News. "We've left them long-winded voice mails, been on the Web site, requested a meeting there and in print. I don't know any other way to make a more pronounced request for a meeting."

The state has known for three months that the cutoff date was coming, said coalition spokeswoman Linda Hilton. The administrative costs of the $2 million program aren't going down, but the program's services are, she said.

"They clearly set this up to fail and make it easier for the Legislature to cut it out altogether at the next session," she said.

The public seems to think these are people "on the government dole, or they're just among those who have made some of those famous 'bad choices,' even though they've never been through a catastrophic injury themselves," said clinic medical director Christina Gallop. She said that it's the opposite of easy for people to even qualify for the assistance, and Utah already has some of the most restrictive eligibility requirements in the country.

"I have to see a patient for a year before they can even apply," Gallop said. "And to do that requires doing two to three hours of paperwork and at times, making court appearances. All the while, we have people in need who are knocking down our doors."

It's easy for people to just tell someone pushing a shopping cart to get a job or to move in with their parents or children, Gallop said.

"The problem is, more often than not, their parents and kids are already staying with them," she said, adding $261 isn't much money at all, "but when that's the only income you've got, it's everything."

Staff members at Herbert's office said they are doing their best to set up a meeting with the group.

"I haven't received a copy of the letter. I'm not aware of the timelines involved, but we're more than happy to meet with them," said Jason Perry, Herbert's transition director. The state Department of Workforce Services has scheduled a public hearing on the rule changes to the supplement program in August.

"The only bad choice with this mess was when I grabbed for the handrail and I missed," Crash said. "A better choice would have been to defy gravity, but I guess that wasn't the right choice, either."

NY Times review says "Adam" has a nuanced performance of Asperger's

The NY Times review:

Playing a character who is mentally disabled can be a fast track to Oscar or to oblivion, and rare is the actor who can resist the statuette-winning, Hanks-Hoffman strategy of mannered tics and mechanical talk. And when you consider that not even Sean Penn could pull it off without making our eyeballs cringe, the performance of Hugh Dancy (pictured) in the charming romantic comedy “Adam” is all the more impressive.

As the title character, a Manhattan engineer who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), Mr. Dancy is credibly eccentric yet still accessible. His pin-neat apartment, stocked with multiple macaroni-and-cheese dinners and monotonal outfits, reflects a mind drawn to symmetry and familiarity. So when the dreamy Beth (Rose Byrne, pictured) moves into his building and his life, Adam — already at an emotional and professional crossroads — is forced to develop a whole new set of coping skills.

Considering the story’s twee details — Adam’s passion is the heavens, Beth’s is teaching tiny children — and a tonally disruptive subplot concerning Beth’s parents (Peter Gallagher and Amy Irving), “Adam” is more involving than you might expect.

The humor is delicate, and the performances sweet and sure; the script (by the director, Max Mayer) is not entirely predictable, and the Manhattan locations (lovingly photographed by Seamus Tierney) have a starry-eyed glaze. What, you mean New York City isn’t a tranquil, leafy haven?

Lawmakers plan to curb TV prescription drug ads

From The New York Times:

In the 1980s, Nancy Reagan told Americans to “Just Say No” to recreational drugs.

Now a handful of legislators are just saying no to TV commercials for prescription drugs. The politicians are taking aim at the 60-second spots that have made viewers familiar with maladies like male urinary urgency and deficient eyelashes (pictured)— not to mention side effects like four-hour erections.

Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, is sponsoring a House bill that would ban ads for prescription sexual aids like Viagra and Levitra from prime-time television, on decency grounds. Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, has said he favors empowering the Food and Drug Administration to bar consumer advertisements for new drugs for an initial period after the F.D.A. approves them — until there has been more real-world experience with the medications.

Meanwhile, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, has introduced a bill called the Say No to Drug Ads Act. It would amend the federal tax code to prevent pharmaceutical companies from deducting the cost of direct-to-consumer drug advertisements as a business expense.

“You should not be going to a doctor saying, ‘I have restless leg syndrome’ — whatever the hell that is — or going to a doctor saying, ‘I have the mumps,’ ” Mr. Nadler said in an interview. “You should not be diagnosed by some pitchman on TV who doesn’t know you whatsoever.”

In the context of the battle over health care reform in Washington, the war on drug ads may represent but a side skirmish. Over the years, legislators have introduced and failed to enact similar bills to restrict drug advertising.

Such measures never get very far because they conflict with free-speech rights, said Billy Tauzin, the president of the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group.

Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said last month that legislators would consider ending the tax break for drug ads as a way to raise money to pay for the health care overhaul. But, after lobbying from broadcasters and newspapers, Mr. Tauzin said, legislators quickly abandoned the idea, concluding that such a measure would not raise significant money.

With lawmakers still fighting over how to finance health care reform, Mr. Nadler said he hoped his bill might find an audience.

“On First Amendment grounds, I am not going to say we will ban” drug advertising, said Mr. Nadler, who represents parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. “But they should not be able to get taxpayers to subsidize it.”

Meanwhile, Representative Daniel Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois, is pushing his own bill that would end the tax deduction for drug company spending on advertisements.

For some legislators and consumer advocates, the ads are a daily reminder of a health care system run amok. Critics contend that drug ads are intended to prompt people to diagnose themselves with chronic quality-of-life problems like insomnia or restless leg syndrome; lead people to pressure their doctors for prescriptions for expensive brand-name drugs to treat these conditions; and steer people away from cheaper generic pills.

And, critics say, such ads may overstate benefits and understate risks of drugs, or by drumming up audiences for the latest pills at a time when the side effects of such drugs may not yet be fully known.

Some academic studies have indicated that such advertising can help people who do need treatment to start taking, and stay on, appropriate drugs, said Julie M. Donohue, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

In 2008, pharmaceutical manufacturers spent about $4.8 billion on direct-to-consumer television, radio, magazine and newspaper advertising, according to Nielsen Media Research. But that sum represents merely a “rounding error” in the estimated national health care bill of $2.4 trillion, Robert Ehrlich, a pharmaceutical marketing executive, wrote earlier this month on his blog.

“It is easy to criticize, even though they know the money is trivial compared to overall health spending,” Mr. Ehrlich said in an interview. “When every congressman can see it on the 6 o’clock news, it just reinforces the problem.”

He added that drug companies spent much more on direct marketing to physicians.

Ads, however, do drive up the number of prescriptions and increase drug revenue. Of the $235 billion spent last year on prescription drugs in the United States, an estimated $8 billion could be a result of drug ads, Mr. Ehrlich wrote in his blog.

The United States is one of only two countries that permit direct-to-consumer drug advertisements. The other is New Zealand, where several years ago some health officials and politicians tried and failed to ban drug ads.

In this country, drug ads must list known side effects. And under current regulations, drug makers voluntarily submit ads to the F.D.A. for vetting before they appear. In May, the agency published new guidelines cautioning companies not to play down a drug’s risks by using tricks like distracting viewers with loud music or using a typeface smaller than the one used to describe a drug’s benefits.

Some legislators and consumer advocates cite past episodes that they say demonstrate the need for tighter regulation of drug advertising.

In 2004, for example, Merck withdrew the pain drug Vioxx from the market over safety concerns, after years of robust sales that were stoked by extensive consumer advertising.

In 2008, Pfizer stopped running a television commercial for its blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor after critics charged the ad misrepresented the credentials of a doctor who endorsed the drug.

In February, attorneys general from 27 states ordered Bayer Pharmaceuticals to run a $20 million campaign to correct deceptive ads for Yaz, a popular birth control pill.

And last week, under a settlement with attorneys general from 35 states who charged that Merck and Schering-Plough had overstated the benefits of the cholesterol drug Vytorin, Merck agreed to submit all new television commercials to the F.D.A. for approval before they are broadcast.

Because health problems with new pills sometimes emerge several years after the drugs go on the market, critics react more strongly to drug ads than to ads for products like cars or alcohol whose risks are known, said Prasad Naik, a professor of management at the University of California, Davis.

“Five years later, they say it causes blindness, and now you’re in trouble,” said Mr. Naik, who has conducted research on pharmaceutical marketing. So it makes sense, he said, that “legislators are sensitive to it and say, ‘Don’t make it so easy to sell.’ ”

A stepfather perseveres through Hurricane Katrina to bring the story of his stepson with Down syndrome to press

From The Mississippi Press:

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Hurricanes, hardship and the death of son couldn't stop Mike Gilly from sharing his story of a special needs stepson who brings him joy.

Against all odds, the Pascagoula man's first book, "Best Friends, The story of Derek," published by Bezalel Books, was released this month four years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed virtually all of the copies of the original version.

"My intent was to self publish the book," said Gilly (pronounced Jilly). "We went to a local printer and made 500 copies in 2005. About a month later, guess who shows up? Katrina."

The books were in three stores. One store was flooded. Another storeowner put the books in his car, which was swept away by floodwaters. The other store was vandalized.

But that didn't discourage Gilly, whose home was devastated by water damage during the hurricane.

After picking up the pieces of his life, he picked up where he left off in the book.

A labor of love honoring best friends, the newly expanded book that now also includes stories from 2005 through 2009 is a tribute to Gilly's stepson Derek Medjesky, who has Down Syndrome, and his friendships with Pat McIlwain and Matt Deason.

Gilly's book is available on the Internet at amazon.com or barnesandnobles.com or locally at Bayou Rentals on Ingalls Avenue in

Pascagoula.

"I wanted everybody to know the story about Derek and Pat," Gilly said, adding that McIlwain also has Down syndrome. "They have been big buddies since they met at the Jackson County Exceptional School and they are still big buddies. Throughout their friendship, these two guys have done some funny, funny stuff."

The father of six and grandfather of seven had been collecting heartwarming and humorous stories about Derek since 1988, when the boy was in junior high school. The book also includes Derek's exploits on the Pascagoula High School football team.

"The hero of the book is Coach Dan Bland," said Gilly. "Coach Bland was wonderful to Derek."

The former Pascagoula High School football coach included Derek on the football team after Derek's mother Karen asked if he could play.

"We expected Derek to be a water boy or something," Gilly said. "But Derek put on pads and played in the junior varsity games. He ended up getting 15 career touchdowns."

Derek dressed out with the varsity football team, too, but remained on the bench, lifting the entire school's spirits with his enthusiastic cheers.

"He was a great inspiration, and when he would get on the field, people would say, 'There's Derek,' and it would make me so proud. The band would play loud and Derek would get to dancing. The coach could have told us, 'I'm not going to put this handicapped boy on the team,' but he did."

The book entertains, uplifts and inspires as Derek now 24 struggles through a stroke, discrimination and the death of one of his brothers, Michael Anthony Gilly, who was murdered on Valentines Day 2005 in his apartment at the University of South Alabama campus in Mobile. The younger Gilly was 27 and close to finishing a degree in mechanical engineering at the time of his death.

"I ended Part I of the book because of that," the author said, adding that Derek took his brother's death hard. "I've never actually seen Derek cry except at Michael's funeral."

Derek has always shown courage when faced with challenges. He was 19 when he collapsed in his high school parking lot with a stroke.

"It turned my life upside down and it turned the school upside down," Gilly said. "I al ways knew people loved Derek. But I truly didn't know how much he was loved until he had a stroke. Students from the school came to visit him at the hospital in Ocean Springs and they followed him to rehab in Gulfport. They checked on him night and day. Those kids are the ones who got him out of the wheelchair and up walking."

Derek's involvement with the Knights of Columbus, the DREAM Program, and Special Olympics also is featured in the book. And several stories are focused on the friendships Gilly formed while working for 34 years as a production planner at Northrup Grumman Shipbuilding. The book also includes the author's journey to become a deacon.

Gilly last month was ordained into the Permanent Deaconate of the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi by the Most Rev. Roger Morin, Bishop of Biloxi. Known as Deacon Mike, he serves Our Lady of Victories Parish in Pascagoula, where he has been a lifelong parishioner and a former student at its school until the ninth grade when he left to attend Pascagoula High School to take shop.

"I talk a little about my deacon class and the guys that took that class and I talk a little about my co-workers in the book," he said. "The book is a tribute to best friends, but the big story is Derek.

The book is a tribute to Matt Moorehead, who was quarterback on the football team when Derek was the running back, Gilly said. Moorehead is recovering after being injured in a four-wheeler accident.

Gilly said he hopes the stories provide comfort and hope for parents struggling with their child's Down Syndrome diagnosis.

"It is a wonderful feel-good book and it gives you a happy ending," he said. "There are some sad stories and some humor and I think it will help people to understand what life is like with a Down child."

Derek lives at home with his mother and the author and he works five days a week at the America's Thrift Store. Wherever Gilly goes, he takes Derek and often Derek's friends come along too.

"Whenever we play golf or swim, I try to take them with me," Gilly said. "As far as I'm concerned, Derek has been a blessing. I don't know how life would be without Derek. It would be boring. That's for sure."

Amputee dancer gets her dream of dancing at Julliard

From WRCB-TV in Oregon:

A Portland, Oregon teen will not let her physical limitations keep her down. Kiera Brinkley is a quadruple amputee, who has never considered herself handicapped.

"I am in a wheelchair, but that doesn't stop me," states Kiera plainly.

When Kiera was 2 years old she caught pneumococcosis, a deadly bacterial infection. Doctors were forced to amputate both her arms and legs.

"When she opened her eyes and asked if she could go back to her room and watch 'Lion King,' I was like, she's still Kiera but a little shorter," said her mother, Elesha Boyd.

What this 16 year old is not short on is her passion for dancing.

"It touches me in a way I hope it can touch someone else," said Kiera.

"It blew me away," said Kiera's dance teacher, Tricia Bachelor. "That was not what I expected."

Bachelor's student internship is a group called "Dream Factory," a, organization that helps critically and chronically ill children fulfill their fantasies.

Kiera's life-long dream is a trip to the prestigious Juilliard Dance School in New York City.

"I wanted to her to reveal something really special, so I pressed her and she said, 'Ok, I want to dance. I want to dance at Juilliard,'" said Tricia Bachelor.

"It's a miracle honestly, as a dancer to be able to go there," said Kiera. "It will help me to grow stronger in my dance career."

The trip may help grow her love for dance, but those seeds have already been planted.

Kiera and her family leave for New York City next Tuesday. During her week at Juilliard, she'll get a tour, sit in on classes and, of course, perform for the students.

Rhode Island builds new homes for disabled vets

From Providence Business News:

PROVIDENCE, RI -– U.S. Senator Jack Reed and Providence Mayor David Cicilline joined Operation Stand Down, Rhode Island Housing, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Housing Resources Commission (HRC) and the state Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals to celebrate the completion of new homes for disabled veterans. The partners hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house at 20 Bissell Street in Providence, which will soon be home to 10 local veterans and their families.

“Our veterans and their families have made great sacrifices for our country and it is our mission to support them,” said U.S. Senator Jack Reed, a former Army Captain who serves on the Appropriations Committee and helped boost federal funding for the HUD 811 program, which finances the construction of new homes for persons with disabilities. “This effort is about providing veterans with a helping hand, homes for their families, and the promise of a brighter future.”

“We owe a debt of gratitude to the brave men and women who have defended our country,” said Providence Mayor David Cicilline. “We welcome this opportunity to provide them with affordable homes while strengthening the neighborhood through the restoration of this property.”

20 Bissell Street consists of 10 homes for rent: six one-bedroom apartments, two two-bedroom apartments, and two three-bedroom apartments. Each of the homes has refinished wood floors, new kitchens, bathrooms and energy-efficient windows, and those on the first floor are fully handicapped accessible. They will be available to disabled veterans earning up to 50 percent of the area median income, or $36,600 a year for a family of four. A HUD Project Rental Assistance Contract is making this possible by paying the gap between rents and operating costs.

“The homes at 20 Bissell Street will not only provide 10 families with nice, healthy apartments they can afford, they will also connect 10 disabled veterans with vital supportive services, as well as transportation,” said Richard Godfrey, Executive Director of Rhode Island Housing. “With so many foreclosed properties in Rhode Island being bought by investors, many Rhode Islanders – our workforce, veterans, disabled, seniors, students – are finding it harder than ever to find a home. Properties like this make it possible to help families find homes they can afford, while enhancing the community as a whole.”

Rhode Island Housing acquired the decades-old apartment building and placed it in the agency’s Land Bank, enabling Operation Stand Down to assemble the financing needed to rehabilitate the property. It was then sold to Operation Stand Down, which began an extensive rehabilitation of the building. Financing sources included $1,500,800 in HUD 811 funds, $500,000 from the state Housing Resources Commission’s Building Homes Rhode Island (BHRI) program, and $664,588 in Thresholds funds provided by Rhode Island Housing and the state Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals.

“Every veteran deserves a home that he or she can afford,” said Nancy Smith Greer. “These units will provide additional housing opportunities for men and women who put themselves in harm’s way so we can all enjoy the comforts of home.”

“These homes come at a critical time as large numbers of veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in need of services such as housing, mental health counseling, and job placement,” said Craig Stenning, Director of the Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals. "Service-provider organizations, already stressed by the large number of homeless veterans from the Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, and other military conflicts, have expressed concern about this inevitable increasing need.”

20 Bissell Street will promote independent living by integrating veterans and their families into an already established neighborhood. It will increase the supply of permanent supportive homes for people with disabilities and improve disabled veterans’ access to quality public and private services and facilities. Specifically, the building will be supported by a variety of on-site and off-site services and will also provide transportation to services as needed.

The energy-efficient renovations completed at 20 Bissell Street greatly improve the appearance of the once-deteriorating building and remove a long-standing neighborhood eyesore, which benefits the entire community.

"We know that having a safe, affordable home is key to health and security,” says Susan Baxter, HRC Chair. “The Commission is pleased to participate in this effort to provide homes and services for veterans and their families."

Ophthalmologists group says no evidence exists that vision problems cause learning disabilities

From Modern Medicine:

SAN FRANCISCO -— No scientific evidence supports the view that subtle eye or visual problems cause learning disabilities, according to a revised policy statement on learning disabilities, dyslexia, and vision issued by the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).

The revised statement, which the AAO issued with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, and the American Association of Certified Orthoptists, expands on the previous policy and includes extensive scientific references.

“Dyslexia and learning disabilities are complex problems that have no simple solutions,” said Sheryl Handler, MD, a pediatric ophthalmologist who helped revise the statement. “This policy statement applies the available evidence to develop recommended steps for the best possible outcome for children with these disabilities. We hope that the statement will be helpful for the physicians who play an important role in the care of children with learning disabilities.”

The policy states that numerous studies have shown that children with dyslexia or related learning disabilities have the same visual function and ocular health as children without such conditions. Altered visual function is not a cause of most reading disabilities, according to the statement.

The statement also notes that no scientific evidence supports the use of vision therapy or tinted lenses or filters as effective direct or indirect treatments for learning disabilities. No valid evidence exists that children participating in vision therapy are more responsive to educational instruction than children who do not participate, according to the organizations.

Indiana disability advocate explains why it helps to drop the MR term from state language

From The Palladium-Item in Richmond, Ind.:

Betty Williams (pictured) says people with disabilities still have a ways to go to dispel stereotypes, but she points to a small success earlier this year in the Indiana General Assembly.

At the urging of Williams, a former Richmond resident, the Indiana Commission on Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, which advises legislators on disabilities, changed its name to the Commission on Developmental Disabilities.

"People with developmental disabilities -- we don't like the word 'retardation,'" she said. "It holds us back."

Williams has cerebral palsy. She and other disabled people are reflecting on their progress this weekend as the Americans with Disabilities Act passes a milestone.

The ADA, signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H.W. Bush, outlaws discrimination against people with disabilities in the same way the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race and gender.

"We've made huge progress," said Nancy Griffin, a longtime advocate, "but there's an awful lot to do."

Griffin recently had a difficult time at Indianapolis' new airport. The shuttle bus didn't have a lift for her wheelchair.

Since the ADA's passage, however, public transportation is much improved for people with disabilities, says Karen Vaughn, a quadriplegic. Indianapolis' city buses are equipped with either lifts or ramps.

The one area that has seen no improvement in the past 19 years, say Vaughn and the others, is the workplace.

"People still say to me: 'You work?'" Vaughn says. "I say, 'Yes, don't be so surprised.'"

The unemployment rate for disabled people is consistently higher than the national average -- 14.3 percent last month, compared with 9.5 percent for people with no disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Williams, a trainer with Arc of Indiana, a nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities, says having a job is central to "being a part of your community."

She recalls being unemployed, collecting Supplemental Security Income. She never missed the "Guiding Light" soap opera. She was miserable.

"But when you work, your self-esteem rises," she says. "You feel great. We've all got to get over that next hurdle."

U.S. House approves bill to assist family members who care for disabled vets

From the Bangor Daily News in Maine:

The House of Representatives passed a bill on July 27 sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud (pictured), D-Maine, that would create a new program aimed at helping family members who care for an injured or disabled veteran at home.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration, also would authorize monthly stipends for individuals caring for severely injured veterans of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan who would otherwise be forced to live in a hospital or institution.

The legislation directs the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a new “caregiver program” that will offer educational sessions, counseling and respite care to family members or other personal caregivers selected by the veteran.

Those general services would be made available to those caring for any veterans whose injuries or disabilities are linked to their military service, regardless of when they served.

The other major provision of the bill seeks to compensate family members who have made significant sacrifices — such as leaving work or school — in order to care for a veteran severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Although the VA will determine the definition of a “severely injured” veteran, the bill generally identifies them as individuals unable to carry out the basic activities of daily life who, without care at home, would have to be institutionalized. In addition to the stipend, those caregivers could also receive travel reimbursement for taking the veteran to doctor’s appointments.

Michaud, who is chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee, said he introduced the bill after holding a hearing in June during which people testified about the financial and emotional challenges that sometimes come with caring for an injured loved one.

“If you look at the stress that it causes to a family, it’s just dramatic,” Michaud, who represents the 2nd District, said in an interview.

In some cases, caregivers have decided to stop working in order to stay at home by their family member’s side, he said.

“I felt strongly that we ought to do something to help the caregivers,” Michaud said.

During House debate on Monday, lawmakers pointed out that dramatic improvements in body armor and conflict-zone medical treatment mean that more soldiers are surviving serious battlefield injuries. But that also means more soldiers return home needing assistance or, in some cases, around-the-clock care.

Lawmakers said the federal government needs to do more to help facilitate home-based care for injured family members.

“For too long, we have not provided them with the resources they need,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Texas, said of caregivers.

Michaud pointed out that the VA does not track the number of veterans who are under the care of a family member. In a 2007 survey of more than 1,700 injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the Dole-Shalala Commission found 21 percent of active duty personnel, 15 percent of the reserve personnel and 24 percent of retired or separated veterans reported that friends or family had given up a job to care for them.

The bill, H.R. 3155, would require the VA to conduct a survey of caregivers at least every three years to identify potential gaps and to improve services.

Blind climbers reach summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for Foundation for Blind Children

From The Arizona Republic:

Cindy Wilhelmi (pictured) and Adam Messler reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in late June, trumping a lifetime of disability.

Wilhelmi, 49, a Glendale resident, and Messler, 29, both legally blind, observed what they could of the famed Tanzanian mountain's scenery from an elevation of 19,340 feet, amidst a flurry of flashing cameras, tears and hugs.

The two were among a group of eight blind climbers, along with 17 sighted guides, who hoped to raise funds and awareness for the Foundation for Blind Children in Phoenix. The group raised over $200,000 through fundraisers to benefit the foundation's infant care program, which provides teaching skills and assistance to families raising visually impaired infants.

The group also wanted to show the potential and independence visually impaired people can achieve with the help of agencies like the foundation.

Messler said people sometimes refused to sponsor or help the group because they felt blind people couldn't hike.

"Blindness isn't a disability - it's just an inconvenience," Wilhelmi said.

Wilhelmi has only limited peripheral vision and struggles to discern detail. Messler has albinism and suffers from sensitivity to the light, nearsightedness and farsightedness, involuntary movement of the eyes and an underdeveloped macula, which prevents him from seeing details.

Despite their visual impairment, the hikers embarked on a rigorous, year-long practice routine to prepare for Kilimanjaro.

"We did the Seven Summits of Phoenix . . . with a lot of difficulty," said Marc Ashton, chief executive officer of the Foundation for Blind Children.

Along with sighted companions, the hikers practiced guiding techniques, such as ringing bells, following the scraping of trekking poles, and holding onto a guide's backpack.

Many of the blind climbers had no previous hiking experience, and the guides, mostly volunteers, didn't know how to guide a blind person.

"When we first started (training) . . . there were lots of falls and bloodied and bruised shins," said Pam Stelzer, Wilhelmi's guide.

The group reached Kilimanjaro's summit on June 29 about 8 a.m. after seven days of hiking.

"When I got there, I just dropped my pole and fell onto a rock, and felt a tear come up," Messler said.

Messler and Wilhelmi said wintry climates, high altitude and difficulty breathing often tempted them to quit.

"Then I would think (to myself), 'I chose to climb this mountain, but a lot of parents (have) to climb a harder mountain,' " Wilhelmi said of people faced with the challenge of raising blind infants.

Messler pushed himself to continue and prove that a blind person can accomplish the same goals as a sighted person.

"When I thought about quitting, I would think about the families that needed my help," Messler said.

The pair hopes the Kilimanjaro trek will help people understand that the visually impaired community is just as resourceful and efficient as those with full vision.

"If they are trained correctly, they can do anything correctly. Anything is possible, but some people don't want to spend the extra money it takes to help," Messler said.

Florida couple hopes to extend stay of deaf-blind girl from Haiti

From The News-Press in Ft. Myers, Fla.:

Hello, goodbye, hello, thank God.

That's how people who've grown to love 11-year-old Marie Cadet during her five months in Southwest Florida might describe her arrival and near departure, and then the last-minute extension of her visa.

Brought here from Haiti for medical treatment, "Little Marie" was blind, deaf and mute. Since February, she has gained the abilities to see, hear and speak.

She was about to return to her homeland last week, where thirst, hunger and hardship would suddenly be in sharp focus. As a child with special needs, she could be marginalized and even abused in the survivalist conditions of her homeland, said her temporary guardian, Marie Popkin. And that was haunting her extended local family, including parishioners of the First Christian Church of Fort Myers and many others.

But everything changed Monday afternoon, when a letter arrived at Marie and Rob Popkin's Alva home. There was news from the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"My husband read it and we didn't understand it. So I called the attorney," Marie Popkin said.

The nonprofit Florida Equal Justice Center in Fort Myers has handled Little Marie's case for about 30 days. But it was given priority because "this case had such humanitarian issues," said Monica Laude, supervising attorney.

"Marie is in lawful status. She was granted a temporary stay for six months," ending Jan. 13, 2110. "We are very glad that it happened," said Laude. "There are many, many immigration cases that don't have any remedy at all."

"One little piece of paper can really change your life," Popkin said.

The challenge is far from over, though.

Although Living Water of Haiti has sponsored Little Marie monthly, it has not met all her needs. "We've overrun our budget on her already," said founder Fred Chalker. In 25 years of missions to Haiti, he said, "(Little Marie) is literally from the poorest village I have ever seen. The poorest of the poor." She had no bed, no shoes, no toys, almost no food.

Here, donations of money and services have helped somewhat in Little Marie's care.

Kerry and Paul Rudd coordinated child care for Little Marie while Marie Popkin worked at RM Orthopedics in Lehigh and Rob Popkin worked as a captain for the Sanibel Fire Department.

Little Marie came here "doing institutional behaviors," Kerry Rudd said, probably as a result of spending two years in an orphanage. "She rocked and covered her face. We could tell she was severely sensory deprived.

"But within 10 or 15 days, she was responding to touch, helping with things around the house. She was suddenly involved in her life. I don't think before that anyone considered that she was a whole person inside.

"It was quick. She was so ready. She was just hungry to be alive."

Now that she can stay, at least until January, her extended local family is working to teach her the skills and words she missed as a blind and deaf person.

"She understands 'banana,' 'water,' 'swimming,'" said Popkin. "Now that she has eyes and ears, she's no longer disabled. She's just really, really behind."

WWII vet raises $2 million so injured soldiers can have service dogs

From FOX News:

MIAMI — No one knows first hand the horrors of war more than World War II hero Irwin Stovroff (pictured).

That's why when Stovroff — who was held for one year in a Nazi POW camp before being freed by allied forces — learned that the U.S. government didn't supply service dogs for wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the 85 year old decorated hero from Boca Raton, Fla. made it his mission to overhaul the policy.

"It is a shame." Stovroff says about the lack of an official federal program that pairs up battle-injured veterans with guide and therapy animals that can greatly improve their rehabilitation. "I wanted to do something about it."

Stovroff has raised nearly $2 million dollars to help train and match up service canines with wounded combat vets. Stovroff is also pushing lawmakers for federal funding to finance the program that he says has received lots of bi-partisan praise.

Stovroff is not someone who shirks away from a tough mission.

Stovroff is not just a World War II vet, but a Distinguished Flying Cross recipient whose own personal tale reads like a Hollywood movie.

After Stovroff was shot down behind enemy German lines on his 35th bombing flight, he had to hide his Jewish faith from his captors to survive, even throwing away his dog tags before his plane crashed.

His latest mission is to bring awareness and support.

"The dog can become his eyes. He can become his legs. He can bring him anything he needs." Stovroff told Fox News with his golden retriever, Cash, lying by his side. "A dog is probably the best thing that can happen to these soldiers."

Stovroff says that the dogs help the injured soldiers, not just in a functional way, but therapeutically.

"They need a guide (but) they need the help and love of a dog as well," he says, petting Cash.

"Benjamin is awesome," says Navy veteran Joseph Worley about his golden retriever.

Worley who lost most of his left leg, and severely injured his right one in a 2004 roadside bomb in Fallujah, Iraq says that his service dog is much more than a pet, but a “vital” support system.

"He braces to help me stand up. He brings me my shoe when I put my prosthetic on. He stabilizes me when I walk," Worley says.

However, it can be expensive to train these canines. Costs to train a service dog can run between $30,000 to $50,000 per dog, Stovroff explains, the reason behind his lobbying Congress for extra help.

But his efforts are beginning to pay off. Earlier this month, Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.) introduced legislation to help train guide dogs and other service animals for wounded veterans.

According to a release by Klein’s office, The Wounded Warrior K-9 Corps Act would establish a grant program for organizations that provide wounded warriors and disabled veterans with service animals. On the Senate side, their newest member Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has also put out a similar bill.

For wounded warriors this means not just a lifeline, but a friend.

“He is a completely trust-worthy companion that does not judge anything. He is willing to help you, and its entire life is based off making you happy,” says Worley.

First Latina named Miss Deaf Virginia

From The News-Leader:

STAUNTON, Va. -— Rosa Herrera (center in picture) is not only the first Latina winner of the Miss Deaf Virginia Pageant, she also is the pageant's first Latina contestant in 17 years.

The contestants, their family, friends and other members of the deaf community celebrated with a breakfast at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel Sunday morning.

"We have Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss World or whatever," said Rachel Bavister, president of the Virginia Association of the Deaf, while speaking through a sign language interpreter. "We have the same thing with deaf girls. We want to brag about our people and how great they are. They are beautiful and intelligent. We also want the young ladies to lead the organization when we age out."

"We are such a small group we let the girls do our ambassadoring for us," Bavister added.

The five contestants had to do a private interview, on-stage interview, talent portion, gowns and present their platform for a panel of judges.

“It’s very important for the future of the deaf community to have leaders,” said Sandy Kessler, co-director of the pageant. “Many of them are grown from the pageant.”

As the winner for 2009-2011, Herrera will have to travel to different conferences and events in the deaf community including the National Association of the Deaf Conference.

Janet Wright, the pageant director, said the pageant is vital in raising awareness for the deaf community.

“We like to show that deaf people can do the same thing hearing people can do,” said White. “It’s to develop leadership skills and confidence and to show the outside world we are well-represented by these ladies.”

The contestants Herrera, Erica Baylor, Najah Bell, Shajuan Evans, and Katherine Morales posed for pictures and accepted gifts from the pageant officials at the breakfast held Sunday.

Herrera, 19, of Fredericksburg, said she joined the pageant in an attempt to meet more deaf people.

“I don’t have a lot of socializing with deaf people in my daily life,” said the student of the University of Mary Washington. “Here there are so many people. It has been a real eye-opener for me to learn about their experiences.”

Herrera said her openness and honesty about the challenges of being a deaf minority and her platform of “Deaf people can be successful” is what she thought led the judges to select her.

Herrera signed a contract outlining conditions of the title, including that if she were to marry, become pregnant or move out of state she would have to relinquish the crown.

The first runner up is Baylor and the second runner up is Bell, who was also voted Miss Congeniality and winner of the evening gown portion of the event. Both two tied for the talent portion for signing songs and Herrera won the platform portion.

Christy Bowers, the former winner of the pageant, said the experience will be life-changing for Herrera.

“I feel so different,” said Bowers, 20, of Roanoke. “I feel I am a stronger person, more confident in myself. It’s definitely gotten me over my stage freight. The Virginia Association for the Deaf has taught me a lot.”

Missouri advocacy group wants autism included in health care reform

From KOAM-TV:

On Capital Hill and across the nation the debate continues over President Barack Obama's health care reform.

In Joplin an advocacy group is making their voices heard after they said they were left out of the reform plan.

The Kansas chapter of the National Autism Association held an Autism Awarness Day at Carousel Park in Joplin.

The event focused on educating the public on autism and the familes effected.

Organizers also targted healthcare reform.

They say the then president-elect Barack Obama made promises to the autistic community, but now that he has established his proposal the autistic community is being left out.

"That's how the autism community feels right now, that they have pushed the issue under the water," says Mandy Commons of the National Autism Association's Kansas chapter. "I'm for health care reform, don't get me wrong, but they need to include autism. The numbers are only growing and we need to find out why."

Carousel Park did their part to help out with awarness, with $2 from each ticket sold Sunday being donated to the Kansas chapter of the NAA.

Arizona media covers blindness organizations' lawsuit against ASU over Kindle

From The Arizona Republic:

Arizona State University's decision to use the Kindle in a pilot program has drawn criticism from advocates for the blind, who say the electronic book reader is inaccessible to blind students.

The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind are seeking a preliminary injunction in federal court to stop ASU's plan to use the device in place of traditional textbooks in three class sections. They say ASU's decision to pilot the Kindle discriminates against blind students because they cannot access all of the device's features.

At issue is the Kindle's navigation menu, which contains no audio option. A blind person cannot select a book or activate features such as the function to have the book read aloud.

Advocacy groups want ASU to hold off until the device is fully accessible. They worry that if the pilot succeeds, more professors will start incorporating Kindles into their classrooms.

"We don't want that precedent set," said Darrell Shandrow, a blind ASU student who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. The 35-year-old journalism student is not enrolled in the honors course piloting the Kindle this fall but said he got involved because he is an advocate for the blind.

A hearing date in U.S. District Court in Phoenix has not been set.

Officials with Amazon.com, the maker of the Kindle, said on the firm's blog that they are working on the accessibility issue.

ASU officials plan to go forward with the pilot. Professor Ted Humphrey, the only ASU faculty member piloting the Kindle this fall, said he would welcome a blind student in his course, though he doesn't believe there is one enrolled so far.

Amazon.com is not a party to the lawsuit and did not return calls seeking comment. On March 19, Amazon's "Kindle Team" wrote on the company's Web site that they have heard from many blind or visually impaired customers regarding the Kindle's accessibility.

"We want to let those customers know that this is something we are working on, and we look forward to making it available in the future," they said on the site.

That is great, Shandrow said, but he doesn't want the university to pilot the Kindle until it is fully accessible.

Other students are looking forward to the pilot's results. A student survey a few years ago at Arizona's three state universities found students spend an average of $816 to $950 a year on textbooks and supplies. Over four years, the cost can exceed $3,200.

That's "a huge cost when you're already paying for housing and tuition," said ASU student Rudi O'Keefe-Zelman, 20, who is double majoring in journalism and political science.

British director explores stigma of mental illness in Asian community in new film

From The Romford Recorder in the UK:

A director is tackling the stigma attached to mental illnesses by drawing on his own experience of living with manic depression.

Azeem Khan's 17-minute drama Open Secrets deals with the "stigma and shame" felt by an Asian family.

Azeem (pictured), 44, of Ilford, said: "It' something I have encountered. An uncle visited us from abroad and I was told to behave in a 'normal' way and pretend that I wasn't ill."

The drama has proved a huge hit, beating 350 entries to scoop the best film gong at last year's Buffalo San Black and Asian Film Festival.

And earlier this month, 540 people saw Open Secrets at Cineworld, Clements Road, Ilford, in three sell-out viewings.

The director, right, who was born in Pakistan and came to England aged five, started his career making commercials and documentaries for the BBC and ITV.

Open Secrets stars 80-year-old Indian actor Saeed Jaffrey (Gandhi, Coronation Street, A Passage to India) who plays Ravi.

Azeem, who studied at Loxford School of Science and Technology, Loxford Lane, Ilford, first met Jaffrey at Pinewood Studios in 2006.

"He's open to working with new directors and he loved the script," said Azeem.

"It was very exciting working with such a big-time actor. He was flexible to my direction."

Ravi discovers his nephew's manic depression is being hidden by his family, and helps them to accept the illness.

Azeem said: "There's been a fantastic reaction. The film has generated a lot of debate."

The director now plans a gritty feature-length drama about mental illness, called Hidden Colours.

The film - for which he is seeking £150,000 from a business to help fund - will centre around a Muslim youngster with schizophrenia and his family's reaction to the condition.

WHO applauds South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland for achieving polio-free status

From BuaNews:

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa, along with Lesotho and Swaziland, has been applauded by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for achieving a polio-free status.

"I would like to congratulate South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho for working tirelessly towards achieving polio-free status," said World Health Organisation (WHO) representative Dr Nicholas Eseko on Monday.

However, he warned that these countries must be urged to work just as hard towards maintaining this status because as long as one child remains infected with the polio virus, children in all countries remain at risk for the debilitating disease.

Deputy Health Minister, Dr Molefi Sefularo, said the country's achievement was based on mutual collaboration, dedication and hard work by health workers at all levels.

This could not have been achieved without the ministerial-appointed Polio Committee, WHO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International and the thousand of volunteers and child care givers who have actively participated in the National Immunisation Campaign.

South Africa spends more than R100 million on its National Immunisation Campaign every three years.

However, while the Deputy Minister said this was a major achievement for the country, it was not yet time to rest. "The polio eradication process has yet to be concluded at global level," he said.

Maintaining and increasing routine immunization should be a priority for every health manager, health professional and all health workers and support staff including the community and village health workers.

"Our responsibility as health professionals and as health managers, is to protect the current and future generations from vaccine preventable diseases," said Dr Sefularo.

The Deputy Minister was speaking during the 3rd Inter-Country Certification Committee Meeting, which was a gathering of policymakers and experts from South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, WHO and UNICEF to review progress made on the eradication of polio and address issues of polio certification at country, regional and global level.

The primary goal of the Inter-Country Certification Committee is to support countries in ensuring that Polio-Free Certification is achieved.

Dr Eseko said more than five million children who could have been paralyzed by the disease are walking freely and free of the virus through vaccination delivered through both routine immunisation and supplemental immunisation campaigns.

"Through global polio initiative, more children have had access to life saving interventions like measles vaccination, vitamin A supplementation, deworming and bed nets," he said.

Dr Eseko, who was speaking on behalf of WHO country's representative Dr Stella Anyangwe, l said routine immunisation services have been strengthen and opportunities to reach hard to reach communities have been established.

Surveillance of other infectious diseases has been strengthened in many countries, he said.

He reminded the countries to keep in mind that while a lot has been achieved through initiatives, a lot also still needs to be done.

"Although the number of endemic countries has significantly dropped from 125 to four, some of the previously free countries in our neighbourhood have been re-infected in recent years, therefore posing a very real risk to our children," Dr Eseko said.

HUD charges Long Island senior housing complex with discrimination for refusing service animals for residents

From RealEstateRama:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -— The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced July 27 that it has charged Sunrise Villas, LLC, with housing discrimination for allegedly refusing to allow residents at its Long Island, NY, age 55-and-over housing complex to have service animals that assist persons with disabilities.

The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to discriminate based on disability by refusing to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodation may be necessary to afford a person with disabilities equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.

Long Island Housing Services, a HUD Fair Housing Initiatives program agency that promotes equal housing opportunities throughout Long Island, initially received a complaint regarding Sunrise Villas’s denial of a disabled resident’s request to make a reasonable modification. While investigating the complaint, Long Island Housing Services discovered Sunrise Villas’s very strict “no pets” policy and conducted three tests of the property, which led to the charge of discrimination.

According to the HUD charge, Sunrise Villas maintains a strict “no pets” policy at its Long Island property and will not accommodate disabled persons who require a service animal. The charge alleges that the tests showed that it was Sunrise’s practice to exclude tenants who require service animals. Testers who stated that they needed service animals were told by Sunrise Villas rental agents that no animals are allowed at the complex.

“Service animals play unique and significant roles in the daily lives of persons with disabilities,” said John Trasviña, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “Policies against service animals deny those who are disabled equal access to housing and the right to fully enjoy their home. HUD is deeply committed to enforcing the Fair Housing Act to make sure that this does not happen.”

The HUD charge will be heard by a United States Administrative Law Judge unless any party to the charge elects to have the case heard in federal district court. If an administrative law judge finds after a hearing that discrimination has occurred, he may award damages to the complainant for its damages as a result of the discrimination. The judge may also order injunctive relief and other equitable relief to deter further discrimination, as well as payment of attorney fees.

In addition, the judge may impose civil penalties in order to vindicate the public interest. In the event of an election, a federal district court judge may also award punitive damages to the complainant.

FHEO and its partners in the Fair Housing Assistance Program investigate approximately 10,500 housing discrimination complaints annually. People who believe they are the victims of housing discrimination should contact HUD at (800) 669-9777 (voice), (800) 927-9275 (TTY). Additional information is available at www.hud.gov/fairhousing.

Texas computer store trains people with disabilities, senior citizens

From the Fort Worth Business Press in Texas:

David Vaughan’s tinkering with computers over the years booted him into a new career in a retail space in which he had longed hoped to open his own business.

His tech know-how and uncommon business approach also are winning the Fort Worth entrepreneur rave reviews and numerous awards.

Vaughan spent 10 years working at Sabre Inc., but as older family members began asking him for computer help, he left the corporate world and opened Computers Made Easy almost three years ago.

Located in the retro 1940s’ Westcliff Shopping Center in former Fort Worth Mayor Bob Bolen’s old Toy Palace - where Vaughan, 47, spent many happy hours of his youth – the training center teaches senior citizens how to navigate the tech world, from PCs to cell phones to digital cameras.

“I’ve always been a tinkerer and an inventor,” Vaughan said. “And I’ve always wanted to open a store here. It didn’t matter to me what. After helping some of my older relatives, I realized it would be perfect to open a training facility specifically for seniors to take a slower approach in teaching them how to use computers and other technology that oftentimes just collects dust in their homes.”

Computers Made Easy offers newbies, young and old, core classes in Internet, e-mail, digital cameras, word processing, spreadsheet and presentations. Core classes meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday for two hours a day for one week. Classes cost $55, while one hour of individualized training runs $25 at the facility and $35 at the customer’s place.

Aside from the 12 Internet work stations, a private conference room and a 20-seat seminar area for lectures, meetings and multimedia presentations, Computers Made Easy has a repair department, an Internet café and a full-service post office. Video conferencing services are set to begin soon in a space that can be rented out to small businesses.

“Because of the name of the place, we had more and more people coming in thinking we just repair computers,” Vaughan said. “So we added a repair department, which has been doing really well. A lot of places you just drop off and pick up your computer and you never see or talk to the technician. We, by design, have our repair department up at the front so you can talk to the technician and get advice. People know we give good, honest advice. It’s not just the sell,” he said.

Although the center caters to older clientele, the specialty at Computers Made Easy is training customers with physical disabilities. Vaughan quickly realized that his slower approach to instructing seniors would also apply to disabled people.

Using adaptive technology, the training center has the most current versions of software that magnify the computer screen and speak all of the text on the screen. Instructors also teach keyboarding using a program that speaks the keystrokes as they are typed; voice recognition software also is available. Computers Made Easy is an approved training center for the Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitation Services, the Texas Workforce Commission and the Veterans Administration.

Not only does Vaughan instruct disabled people, he also goes a step beyond and hires them to teach others and to refurbish donated computers for resale. Currently, Computers Made Easy has a staff of 15, and about 10 or 12 of them have a disability, Vaughan said.

“Our focus is people with disabilities. We do anything we can to hire more people and to train more people with disabilities,” he said.

“Whether they’re blind, have low vision, have cerebral palsy or Down syndrome or maybe are autistic, a lot of people just won’t give disabled people the chance,” Vaughan said. “They don’t get past the interview because of their disability. We’re agnostic to that. If it’s the right person for the job, they’re hired.”

This business practice has earned Vaughan several honors, including being named Professional Man of the Year by the Association of Retarded Citizens, the Small Employer of the Year Award from the Texas Governor’s Committee on People With Disabilities and the 2009 Business of the Year from DARS. On Aug. 7, Vaughan will accept the Employer of the Year Award from Texas Advocates, a nonprofit group run by and for people with disabilities.

Tim Harton, director of marketing and operations, agreed that disabled people often are ignored. He tells a favorite

story to illustrate how the store is oblivious to people with disabilities.

“When one of our very best technical people applied for a job, I interviewed him and hired him on the spot,” Harton said. “He had been in a car accident when he was a young man and had lost the use of his right hand. I never even noticed until we shook hands – we had to shake with our left hands. He said, ‘I hope this doesn’t prevent me from getting the job.’ I said, ‘No, that seals it up.’”

Vaughan is expanding services to more corporations, the Hispanic market and to more nonprofit agencies. Computers Made Easy has partnered with Undiscovered Abilities, a nonprofit that was founded by Harton, a Vietnam vet, to help returning veterans and people with disabilities learn technology and find resources and jobs.

“Vets helping vets is what vets want to do,” Harton said. “They need to be aware of what’s available to them and through technology; we can help them do that.”

Harton, who also grew up in the same neighborhood near Vaughan, said philanthropy is one of the training center’s most effective marketing tools.

“The Cornerstone Women’s Shelter teaches computer classes on computers donated by Computers Made Easy. Spanish programmed computers that we have designed have been sent to missions in Central America to help educate the youth in that region. We have an IT contract at Cassata High School at a fraction of the normal rate,” Harton said. “We’re doing work we feel needs to be done.”

Vaughan once considered turning the business into a nonprofit but decided against it.

“I may start branding us as the ‘non-nonprofit agency,’” Vaughan said. “We’re fulfilling a need for people with disabilities without being a nonprofit and showing that you don’t have to be big or a nonprofit to have an impact in your community,” he said. “You can be a struggling, little company but still reach out and help.

“I’ve been in Fort Worth all my life and love it. This is a great way to give back to my neighborhood and to the community.”

Louisiana tries to assist people with disabilities to gain employment

From WAFB-TV:

BATON ROUGE, La. - New figures released July 24 show an alarming increase in the unemployment rate for metro Baton Rouge and Louisiana as a whole.

In Baton Rouge the unemployment rate jumped to 7.4%. That's an increase of nearly 1.5%. It's about the same in metro New Orleans. Shreveport is at the bottom of the heap among metro areas. In Baton Rouge more than 28,000 people are out of work.

Now imagine being unemployed...and disabled.

The Department of Social Services has teamed up with local groups to help make things a little easier for people with special needs.

Through local partnerships, DSS and Louisiana Rehabilitation Services, disabled people get the things they need to start working. In some cases the groups have provided prosthetic devices like arms and legs.

The program helped Jamie Womack, who has cerebral palsy, get her college degree. Womack says despite laws in place that should protect the disabled, the discrimination she and others face can be blatant and hurtful.

"It's very frustrating and it really goes right to the core of me. It really kind of strips me of my dignity as a person," says Womack.

The LSU graduate is now a Christian school teacher in Erwinville.

"My disability is strictly physical. God has blessed me with a tremendous mind," Womack says.

Her struggle is a familiar one to Mark Martin with LRS. His group has helped to find jobs for nearly 30, 000 people with disabilities in Louisiana.

"It's a difficult job market right now. And we're thankful that we have the employers that are so kind to us," Martin says.

Gov. Schwarzenegger urges California bar to let quadriplegic woman take exam

From McClatchy Newspapers:

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, responding July 25 to a story in The Sacramento Bee, called it "outrageous" that the State Bar of California is refusing to let a quadriplegic law school graduate take the July 28 bar exam because of a technical snafu. The governor urged the bar to relent.

The bar's online vendor did not process Sara Granda's electronic application because it did not include credit card information.

Granda is indigent and does not own a credit card. Moreover, she believed it was unnecessary to submit such information because the state Department of Rehabilitation had already paid the $600 application fee by check. She said she checked more than once with a bar representative after the payment was sent and was assured everything was in order for her to take the exam.

But last week — a month after the June 15 final deadline for registering — a bar representative informed Granda, who graduated in May from UC Davis School of Law, that she was not registered and could not take the exam with her classmates.

It is now the bar's position Granda should have submitted credit card information and later sought a refund.

Granda, 29, is paralyzed from the neck down as a result of a car crash when she was 17, and lives on $870 monthly disability benefits. Her health care is covered by Medi-Cal, and the state Department of Rehabilitation has paid for her post-high school education — she has three college degrees. The department also has paid all the fees and costs, including for two preparatory courses, in connection with the bar exam.

"It is outrageous that someone who has overcome so much in life is penalized by a bureaucratic error," Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement that cited the Sacramento Bee story. "Government should work for the people, not against them, and I'm calling on the State Bar to allow Sara Granda to take next week's test.

"Sara is a fighter, and I'm with her all the way," the governor said.

Granda's bid for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the bar from excluding her was denied Friday by a Sacramento federal judge, who suggested she seek help from the state Supreme Court, which has authority over the State Bar.

With the help of Sacramento attorney Stewart Katz, she plans to petition the Supreme Court today for an order directing the bar to let her take the exam.

While bar officials have said they will oppose Granda's petition, they acknowledge the state high court has the power to waive the deadline.

Katz, who is working without compensation, said Saturday he is gratified by Schwarzenegger's public support and hopes it may have a salutary effect.

"I am hopeful the bar will take a hint from the governor and do the right thing," Katz said.

British woman, 84, takes her place on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth to promote disability access

From BBC News:

An 84-year-old woman in a mobility scooter has taken up temporary residence on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth to help promote disabled access.

Gwynneth Pedler (pictured), from Cumnor, in Oxfordshire, was the oldest volunteer to be chosen for Anthony Gormley's 100-day-long living art project in London.

She began her one-hour stint at 0300 BST and waved semaphore flags telling people to live their lives to the full.

She is now planning to go paragliding for her 85th birthday on 23 July, 2010.

Mrs Pedler said Monday's experience was "absolutely brilliant," in spite of the rain.

She said her flags got very wet and "kept flopping in my face" but she stayed focused on getting across the positive message that she wanted to, from 25ft (7.62m) high up on the plinth.

Mrs Pedler is a former Oxfordshire school teacher and said she learnt semaphore as a girl when she was a sea ranger.

As a result of her plinth exhibit she said: "The cause of disability and access will be in some people's minds who haven't had it in their minds before."

Shortly after being lowered down, she announced her intention to spend her 85th birthday paragliding.

"I've been up the rigging in a tall ship in my chair, I've been up the plinth in my scooter, next year I am going to go paragliding in some form of transport," she said.

Colorado prosthetics designer allows disabled athletes to maximize potential

From The Denver Post:

BOULDER — Bob Radocy (pictured) screws a black plastic hook into his prosthetic arm and delivers a ferocious roundhouse punch to the wall.

"See how it absorbs the blow? That didn't even hurt," he says.

Just another round of product testing for the Boulder prosthetic designer, whose expanding arsenal of one-of-a-kind tools enables amputees to pursue their passions.

Name a sport, and Radocy has designed a prosthetic attachment that empowers the armless or legless athlete to not just play, but thrive. Martial arts, cycling, weightlifting, surfing, skiing, swimming, shooting, climbing, golfing, baseball, basketball and hockey are a dozen of the two-handed sports that Radocy has returned to amputees.

"Our greatest excitement in the last couple years is really being able to get into design that duplicates body mechanics. Now people with physical challenges can really meet their optimum level of performance," Radocy says. "People say, 'What can't you do?' And I tell them there haven't been many instances where we haven't been able to help solve a person's challenges."

Most of the prosthetics Radocy manufactures at his TRS Inc. laboratory in Boulder are arms and hands. Before focusing on sporting equipment, Radocy designed rubberized hands with simple lever pinchers, mainly for children.

But the surge of U.S. soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with upper limbs missing has hastened the push to develop more sports-centric prosthetics, inspiring Radocy and his six-employee, 30-year-old TRS Inc. to forge even more innovative prosthetic designs.

With the U.S. government supporting new-school rehabilitation programs that ferry injured soldiers into self-confidence-building pursuits like rock climbing, kayaking and skiing, the demand for adaptive prosthetics has never been stronger.

"There is a new population of people who are young and aggressive guys and who are demanding really progressive designs in prosthetics," Radocy says. "It's gotten me excited about developing an opportunity for them."

The flexible polyurethane gadgetry that evolves at TRS leads the world in sports and recreation prosthetic attachments. It's a niche, but growing, industry for amputees who refuse to abandon their active lifestyles because of a missing limb.

"People today are expecting more of themselves, and they are demanding more from their prosthetics. It's that simple," says Radocy, who lost his left arm below the elbow in a 1971 car accident. "Years ago, people had to quit or do everything one-handed."

When Aron Ralston first met Radocy, he was struck by an overwhelming notion: "I am going to be able to climb better than I ever have before."

It was late 2003, only a few months after Ralston amputated his own right arm with a dull knife after spending five days trapped by a dislodged boulder in a remote canyon near Moab.

Just seeing the possibilities in Radocy's customized prosthetics motivated Ralston to focus hard on his physical rehabilitation. Today, thanks in part to mountaineering-specific prosthetics Radocy designed with a team of climbers, including Ralston, the 33-year-old Coloradan is an internationally renowned alpinist who has skied from the 20,320-foot summit of Alaska's Denali and solo climbed all of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks in winter.

"Within a year, I was actually climbing better than I ever have before. Climbing, rafting, skiing; in all of those I have certainly taken myself to higher levels," says Ralston, whose raft-rowing trip down the Grand Canyon last April may have been a first for an amputee. "Being able to get out there and have the equipment that allows you to get out there is very important to recovery."

Radocy, whose soothing voice and helmet-like afro conjure memories of murmuring television painter Bob Ross, is hardly the hunched-over scientist, perpetually tinkering in his lab.

Buff and fit — he lifts weights and works out daily — 60-year-old Radocy tests each of his uniquely adaptive but not high-tech prosthetics. He is an accomplished archer, proven by his office wall, filled with mounted exotic game.

He swims with the "living hinge" swim hand that folds upon itself when pulled backward through water and ably swings the "Pinch Hitter" bat-grasping prosthetic and "Power Play" hockey stick grabber.

There are no robotics or complicated machinery in his engineering. He uses materials, angles and design to mimic sporting movement in creations that may look nothing like a hand but work just like one.

With degrees in engineering, biological sciences and physical education, Radocy applies the tried-and-true method of invention to all his prosthetic creations: "We build it, try it and throw it away. Then we try something else, and over a period of time, we get it right."

The typical design process involves lengthy interviews and plenty of input from amputees. It's a symbiotic relationship between designer and amputee from which both sides draw inspiration. Most every tool is created by addressing a specific athlete's challenge. Radocy simply engineers around the challenge.

"He is the master problem solver," says Ronnie Dickson, a 22-year-old who is studying prosthetics design at Florida's St. Petersburg College and uses a cutting-edge left leg prosthetic with a computerized knee. "I can only hope to be that good."

Malcolm Daly, who helps lead Paradox Sports, a group that provides outdoor-sports opportunities to the disabled community, has seen Radocy's sports attachments open doors for amputees who wondered whether they would ever get back outside and play.

"Like Paradox, Bob is helping to provide that inspiration component," says Daly, who lost his leg in a 1999 climbing accident and designed a climbing-specific prosthetic foot Radocy manufactures. "Just being out there doing these sports and doing them at a level we can be proud of is really raising people's awareness of what we can do. Bob is providing a great service to the amputee world."

Actors bring the stories of their own mental illnesses to the stage

From The Orange County Register. In the picture, Danny Oberbeck asks audience members if they think he's crazy in "Third Tree from the Left", a play written and performed by people with mental illness playing at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, Calif.

In high school, the punishing voices began to bombard Kymberli Kercher Smith's mind. She withdrew from most of her activities but not theater – she felt safe losing herself in a character.

When she finally let people know something was wrong, she was told to stop being so dramatic.

Finally, in her late 20s, Smith was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mix of hallucinations or delusions with mania or depression. She lost her marriage, jobs and, for a time, a place to live.

But on Saturday, Smith, 41, regained her place on the stage. She performed two shows in the Santa Ana Artists Village, this time proudly starring as Kymberli Kercher Smith in an original play about mental illness.

"Third Tree on the Left," directed by Don Laffoon of the nonprofit Stop-Gap theater company, stars a cast of Orange County residents who helped craft the dialogue based on their own experiences with depression, bipolar disorder and the stigma of being called crazy.

"I used to use my acting as a shell to hide my feelings or become someone totally different," Smith said. "Now I'm using it to be myself and share my feelings with other people."

Roughly 26 percent of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Locally, in recent years, plays about Alzheimer's disease and AIDS have touched audiences in ways not possible with an academic lecture or stacks of literature in a doctor's office.

"If we're watching a stage presentation about something that maybe we're uncomfortable with, at least we can sit in a dark theater and try to open ourselves and not be defensive about it," Laffoon said. "We feel for the characters. It's not just intellectual. There's empathy involved."

In Smith's monologue, she spoke of the discouraging prognosis from doctors who told her she'd never work or maintain loving relationships. She explained the unpredictable turbulence of her mind losing focus.

But she also shared hope. The Fullerton resident frequently speaks at schools and volunteers with local advocacy groups.

"I saw for the first time in my life that I have potential," she told the audience. "I am not my diagnosis. I am so much more."

The play started with each cast member wearing a white mask, but ended with them shaking the hands of strangers seated in the audience.

Navarro Wenceslao attended the show with his mother because his sister has schizophrenia.

"Sometimes we are careless when it comes to other people with this sickness," said Wenceslao, 32, of Brea. "As a community we have to be aware. They don't need any more extra burdens on them."

The production was funded with a grant from Orange County Behavioral Health Services. Play rehearsals required working around doctor's appointments and medication schedules. Some of the actors read from their scripts during the performance because of memory loss from medication or electroconvulsive shock therapy.

Smith said she recited a few of her lines out of order, but she good by the time she took her final bow on a stage decorated with step ladders.

"I had a hard time doing the show, but I made it through," she said. "That's how I feel almost every day."

New 49er's learning disability a strength, football analyst says

From Glenn Franco Simmons in the Bleacher Report:

I've seen a range of commentary that ranges from bizarre to pedestrian to stereotypical with the signing of Nate Davis by the 49ers. Some border on prejudicial.
Even though he has yet to take to play in an NFL game, Davis exemplifies character in a sport when character is more important ever.

Davis has already shown an ability to be successful at each stage of his football career.
And that's no mistake, nor is it luck, or the result of slick publicity.

This kid is the real deal.

Starting as a Ball State freshman speaks not only to Davis' physical skills, but it also shows that he has a maturity not always typical of star players.

While some fans and professional writers voice concern over Davis declaring for the NFL draft as a junior, I see his decision as a wise move.

It allows him a few years to learn the NFL game.

The 49ers were also wise in choosing him.

If he develops, Davis may surprise naysayers and become an extremely good NFL quarterback.

I would be surprised if he remained a backup, but this young man has a few years to develop.

The 49ers know how important it is to develop quarterbacks.

The franchise also knows how important backups were to its glory years.

Fans, as well as fan and professional writers, often overlook the key contributions of backups during the Joe Montana and Steve Young eras.

While Young could have been a starter when he was a backup, that's not a necessary ingredient for a backup.

Competence and ball control are the ingredients.

With that comes preparation. That is something Davis has had success, and struggles, with.

His team's loss in the Mid-American Conference championship to Buffalo was sobering.

However, Davis made no excuses.

In the aftermath, he noted that games are not only lost on the game-day field.

They are also lost on the practice field.

In team meetings.

In individual preparation.

In mindset; a singleness of purpose; focus.

If all pre-game variables are not operating in unison, the breakdown will be apparent.
Loss is likely.

Clearly, Davis did not lose the game against Buffalo.

It's a team win or loss.

The officials don't lose it for you.

You cannot help but wonder if Ball State may have been a bit overconfident with a 12-0 record and nearly everyone believing they would go 13-0.

Davis said the team should have prepared better and he included himself.

Unlike many Ball State fans and some sports writers who blamed officials' poor calls, this young man shouldered the responsibility.

That's character.

Davis has unfairly received criticism because of a so-called learning disability because he has noted that he is a visual learner.

Well, he is on a team where Montana spoke of the necessity of visualization, and the importance it played in his success.

In the right environment, which the 'Niners have with Jed York and Mike Singletary, Davis could excel.

If I were able to talk to him, I would tell him to view his "disability" as a strength.

The X's and O's will come.

If you doubt this young man, who once thought of not attending college because of his non-mainstream way of learning, check out this quote from USA Today in December:
"I came to Ball State {on a recruiting trip}, and the first thing they took me to was the academic part. "They showed me that I really had a chance to make it through college."

Academics was foremost on his mind.

Character.

Maturity.

Nate Charles Davis.

Florida teen with autism takes on the NYC Triathlon

From Ocala.com:

July 25, at the sound of the starting gun, Ocala's Robbie Phillips (pictured) will compete alongside his father, Bob, and 3,400 other top-notch athletes at the ninth annual Nautica New York City Triathlon.

Making it to this premiere sporting event, which features competitors from all 50 states and 20 nations, is a major feat in itself for any athlete. For 18-year-old Robbie, who has autism, it has been a special journey.

As a child, Robbie was severely overweight, was sick and couldn't do much of anything physically. In addition, he couldn't speak and didn't interact with others.

Around the age of 5, Robbie's life began to turn around when he was enrolled in a physical therapy program to help him overcome some of his neurological problems.

"He couldn't run at 4 years old, Bob Phillips said. "We had doubted that any of this would do any good, that he wasn't going be able to do it. We just didn't have him figured out."

Much to everyone's surprise, not only was Robbie able to do it - he excelled. At the age of 8, the determined boy competed in the four-mile Daytona Beach Easter Run. From there, more races followed and the sky was the limit.

Robbie also became a successful gymnast, compiling 14 gold medals while earning state all-around titles in 2001 and 2002 and competing in the Special Olympics.

Though he had blossomed into a gifted athlete, the transition into triathlete was not a smooth one.

"I always knew about triathlons and I had thought about doing it [with Robbie]," Bob Phillips said. "But I pulled a bike out of the garage and I just couldn't get him to ride a bike. I kept trying and kept trying, but he wouldn't ride a bike. So I gave up."

Then Vickie Collins, who at the time was Robbie's adaptive physical education teacher at Maplewood Elementary, approached Bob and his wife, Cathy, and told them that she had gotten their son to ride a bike.

"We told Vickie that we were never going to forget her for teaching him how to ride that bike, because it had opened up so many doors," Bob Phillips said.

With that major hurdle conquered, and with coaches at the local YMCA guiding him as a swimmer, Robbie began training for triathlons with his dad. He entered his first race, St. Anthony's Meek-n-Mighty, in April of 2001.

Since then, the hungry competitor has participated in more than 30 triathlons, including the Philadelphia Triathlon and the Turtle Crawl.

Today, he may face his toughest task yet in the only Olympic-distance triathlon that New York City has to offer. He will begin with a 1,500-meter swim through the Hudson River, then tackle a 40-kilometer bike ride along Manhattan's West Side before finishing up with a 10-kilometer run that goes through Central Park.

When Robbie began therapy in 1996, the Phillips' never imagined the strides he would eventually make.

"What we were striving for was better physiology, better breathing and better fitness," Bob Phillips said. "That's what we've always been after since his earliest age."

But for Robbie, competing is not just an outlet for his disorder - he genuinely loves it. And that rewarding sense of achievement he gets every time he performs well may just be the driving force behind his will to overcome.

"There's a sense of accomplishment that comes with it," Bob Phillips noted. "That's what we notice when he gets his awards. He gets a big kick out of it."

New Mobility says President Obama's ADA speech bombs

From New Mobility magazine's blog:

President Obama used his speech on the 19th anniversary of the ADA to outline his disability policies — about time. And as strong an Obama admirer as I am, I think we’re in trouble.

The roughly 22-minutes-long clip opened with Obama’s admiration for his father-in-law, who had MS and “never complained,” even when he had to get up a flight of stairs with two canes, and how he “never missed a day of work.” Obama’s comments feed into the whole “super crip” stereotype, and it’s troubling that Obama can’t identify the dynamic of oppression at play in his depiction of his father-in-law’s disability. Plus, what is he saying about those of us who do sometimes miss a day of work because of our disabilities? Or who can’t work? Not to mention can’t get up a flight of stairs?

Obama segues from his father-in-law’s plucky determination to a bunch of boiler-plate feel-good crap, and then, tellingly, lingers over the story of long-time community fixture Tony Coelho. “Discrimination was rife,” says Obama, wonderingly, as he told how Coelho wasn’t accepted into the priesthood or the Army because of his epilepsy.

Obama then spun a fanciful tale about how once upon a time in a republic long, long ago people like Coelho were commonly discriminated against because they had disabilities. But then in the year 1990 that all changed, and from that time forward all American citizens with disabilities had rights and lived very equal lives indeed.

Toward the end of the clip Obama finally began speaking in the present tense. He says the focus is shifting to disability rights in other countries, as he's authorizing the U.S. to finally sign on to the U.N Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

The crowd applauds.

Then, Obama talked about stem cell research, signing the Reeve Act and health care — all good things — as if they can be framed in the context of disability rights. But they can’t. Treatment, even world-class quality treatment, is not the same as civil rights, and the crowd knows it.

Obama waits for applause, but there is none.

Finally, finally, FINALLY in the last five minutes he mentions he’s beefing up funding for IDEA, strengthening anti-discrimination in the DOJ, and directing the Department of Transportation to do something or other for us. The crowd applauds. Obama also had this to say about ending the institutional bias: “… [people] living independently in their communities, if that’s what they choose.” Well, yes, of course, if they choose. But the way he said it almost seemed as if he doesn’t quite believe most would make that choice.

The speech ended as stereotypically as it began: Obama cited the type of disabled guy he personally respects. FDR, he said approvingly, never let on to the American people that he even had a disability, and FDR’s disability made no difference to his ability as president. Then Obama tried a cutesy attempt to articulate what historian Hugh Gallagher wrote about so brilliantly in “FDR’s Splendid Deception.” FDR’s disability DID make a difference, said Obama. But in a positive way.

Here’s what I wrote about this speech as the clip played: Jesus Christ, we’re screwed.

If this clip is indicative of Obama’s disability policies, then it’s clear Obama believes most of the hard work is already done (if it was ever that important to begin with), and mainly all we need now is better medical treatment, either through stem cell research or health care. Obama’s greatest praise is for the appeasers who never complain, and he gave just a passing pat on the back for the advocates who brought the ADA into being. Job done, he seems to say. No need for that type of unpleasantness any more.

But, oh yes, while we’re in a magnanimous mood, why don’t we beef up ADA enforcement a bit, says the tone of Obama’s speech. Too, let’s give lip service to the rights of Americans to live freely in the community. Maybe then they’ll stop handcuffing themselves to my house.

Once again I can only conclude that Obama has a crip problem.

Schools brace for swine flu this fall; many camps closed this summer because of fears

From the Los Angeles Times: In the picture, nurses Annie Tallud, left, Gina Tallud and Gilli Treiman talk with associate director Ellisa Becker at Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu, which is among camps taking precautions against the flu.

Hundreds of children have been sent home from summer camps across Southern California in recent weeks with flu-like symptoms, and camp counselors and directors are taking precautions to prevent the spread of the H1N1, or swine flu, virus in cabins and mess halls.

But officials say the sight of children arriving at sleep-away camps armed with the anti-viral medication Tamiflu is probably just a harbinger of what awaits schools in coming weeks as students move into dormitories, and elementary and secondary students begin classes.

Health officials predict a resurgence of the flu in the fall, and a vaccine effective against H1N1 is not expected to be available until long after the start of school.

School districts and universities are on alert, working with health officials to launch education campaigns, stockpile medical supplies and discuss worst-case scenarios.

State education officials are developing plans to provide lessons and meals for low-income children in case elementary and secondary schools close.

School closures would occur only by order of the superintendent or the county health department and only if so many children were sick that it was impractical to keep classes running, said Dr. Kimberly Uyeda, director of student medical services at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

UC campuses are stockpiling supplies, from paper masks and hand sanitizer to food and water. Officials are going over worst-case scenarios in case of campus-wide outbreaks. Officials are considering screening students for fever when they check into dorms.

"If we prepare for the worst, then we're going to get a better outcome," said Grace Crickette, chief risk officer for the University of California.

For now, sleep-over camps provide a look at what schools may face.

Before children are allowed to board camp-bound buses, nurses check temperatures and medical histories, hoping to ensure they are flu-free. Visitors days have been canceled at some camps, and makeshift infirmaries were created in some dining halls and lawns. High-fives and hand-holding are out, replaced by fist bumps and elbow-linking. Hand sanitizer is everywhere.

"We're all getting habitual with our Purell," said Jordanna Flores, executive director of Camp Alonim in Simi Valley, which has sent 160 children home in recent weeks. Many have since recovered and returned to camp.

Flu symptoms have been mild, but the virus is highly contagious, particularly when children are in close proximity.

Some organizations that cater to children with health issues, including the American Lung Assn. and the Muscular Dystrophy Assn., canceled camps because of concerns about the virus.

"It's not worth the risk," said Bob Mackle, a spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. "It was a heartbreaking decision for us, and it was a tough decision."

Most camps remain open, according to the American Camp Assn. No organization has a complete list of outbreaks, but there have been anecdotal reports from across the country, notably in the Northeast, which has a deep tradition of sleep-away camps.

The California Department of Public Health has received reports of outbreaks at 16 camps in eight counties, though department officials suspect the number is higher.

At Camp Ramah in the Ojai Valley, 80 campers and staff members were sent home with flu-like symptoms in the first session; many have returned. Twenty-nine eventually tested positive for the flu, said Rabbi Daniel Greyber, the camp director. The camp canceled its annual visitors day, which typically attracts as many as 2,000 people, and instead brought in a petting zoo.

Once campers left, workers deep-cleaned the bunks, beds and bathrooms. The 600 campers attending the second session, which began Thursday, were advised to pack Tamiflu.

"We hope it's a proactive thing that we can do to minimize the flu within the camp," Greyber said.

Education is equally important. Greyber demonstrated proper coughing and sneezing etiquette (into the elbow or on the sleeve, not into the hands). Campers produced skits about "Swine '09."

But for some children who fell ill, the situation was traumatic.

At Camp Alonim, health center coordinator Cindy Petrak said some campers wept when they learned they would have to leave their healthy friends and siblings for seven days to recover.

"It felt like Ellis Island," she said.

On a recent day, children lined up in an infirmary to have their temperatures taken. Parents of any who had fevers were called to pick them up. As many as 20 campers rested on a grassy lawn, sitting on white sheets with their luggage, waiting for their rides home.

Austin, a sixth-grader from Encino, had a fever and a sore throat when he was sent home. He said he was sad to miss bunk night, when his cabin-mates picked the evening activities. When he returned, he said, he was happy that friends noticed his absence. "They all recognized I was back," he said.

Some camps have been spared, including Camp Paintrock and Blue Sky Meadow.

Camp Paintrock sends Los Angeles children to Wyoming for a four-week youth leadership development program. About half a dozen of the 60 campers had flu-like symptoms, but none tested positive for the flu.

Blue Sky Meadow, a science camp for Los Angeles area children in Big Bear, checked campers' temperatures and health histories before students boarded buses to the camp. Families of children who had not been feeling well recently were told to select another week to attend.

"It's sort of a healthy-campers-are-happy-campers philosophy," said Madeline Hall, director of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation, which runs Blue Sky Meadow.

Parents are trying to take the flu in stride.

"I think when kids are at camp, living in close quarters, there's always a chance. If one kid gets sick, all the kids get sick," said Mara Sperling, whose 12-year-old daughter Ella left last week for Gindling Hilltop Camp in Malibu. "It's one of the hazards of going to sleep-away camp."

Susan Freudenheim's 14-year-old daughter Rachel Core is attending Camp Alonim, where Tamiflu will be given to the entire cabin, with parents' permission, if two children in a cabin get sick.

She declined because she fears there could be a Tamiflu shortage and that unnecessary medication could lead to the development of a drug-resistant strain of the virus. Health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, advise against giving the drug to healthy people.

Freudenheim, managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, which has covered the outbreaks extensively, hopes her daughter stays healthy.

"It would be a disaster if she came home," said the former editor at the Los Angeles Times. "She'd have nothing to do, be sick alone at home, and I'm working full-time."

Educators plan to work in the coming weeks to prevent the spread of the virus in classrooms and dorms, but they said it ultimately comes down to education and personal responsibility.

"Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands," said Crickette.

New study says children with autism may not have more intestinal problems than other children

From the Chicago Tribune:

A new study casts doubt on a commonly held but controversial belief that autistic children have more gut problems than their peers.

The Mayo Clinic study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found autistic kids in the study were more likely than their nonautistic counterparts to be picky eaters or constipated. But the researchers did not find a significant difference between the two groups when it came to diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, bloating, reflux or vomiting.

"We did not find a difference in gastrointestinal symptoms in total," said Dr. Samar Ibrahim, lead study author and a Mayo Clinic pediatric gastroenterology fellow.

For years, parents, physicians and researchers have wondered whether people with autism suffered from more digestive problems than the rest of the population. Many autistic children are following aggressive medical regimens aimed at treating suspected gut trouble, including multiple nutritional supplements, anti-fungal medication and perhaps an anti-viral or antibiotic drug. Many also are on a restrictive diet.



However, "such treatments should not be provided indiscriminately to children with autism unless there is explicit evidence indicating the presence of a gastrointestinal disorder in a specific case," the study authors wrote.

The study subjects were 121 autistic children and 242 other children. All were residents of Olmsted County, Minn., home to the Mayo Clinic. Comparing the cumulative incidence of gastrointestinal problems from birth until the late teens showed that the only significant differences were in constipation and feeding issues.

Dr. Mark Gilger, chief of pediatric gastroenterology at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, said he did not think the study settled the fiercely debated question.

"This is where you say further research is needed because that's the honest truth," said Gilger, who wrote a commentary accompanying the study.

It's possible that subgroups of autistic children might have specific gastrointestinal issues that would not be picked up in a general-population study, said Dr. Geri Dawson, chief science officer for the nonprofit organization Autism Speaks.

"There is more work to be done," she said.

British hacker with Asperger's will receive no sympathy in the USA, Pentagon says

From The Telegraph in the UK:

Gary McKinnon (pictured), the Briton accused of hacking Pentagon and Nasa computer networks, faces an increasingly hostile climate on cyber security in the US if his extradition is approved this week.

American officials have made clear that they regard Mr McKinnon, 43, an unemployed computer programmer who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, as a serious offender whose case must be pursued rigorously in the US courts.

Following a recent explosion of cyber assaults on US military, intelligence and government networks, the authorities say they are more determined than ever to prosecute national security hackers vigorously.

A senior military officer at the Pentagon told The Sunday Telegraph: "US policy is to fight these attacks as strongly as possible. As a result of Mr McKinnon's actions, we suffered serious damage and lost a lot of time and money.

"This was not some harmless incident. He did very serious and deliberate damage to military and Nasa computers and left silly and anti-American messages. All the evidence was that someone was staging a very serious attack on US systems."

A US intelligence official echoed those comments. "He really caused us a lot of trouble," he said last week.

Mr McKinnon's lawyers contend that he encountered minimal security as hacked into the computers in 2001 and 2002 in search of evidence to prove his belief in UFOs and alien life, making little effort to hide his actions.

His case has become a cause célèbre in Britain, especially since he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism that leaves him particularly vulnerable to changes in his environment.

It has also become a lightning rod for frustrations about the UK-US extradition treaty, which British critics claim is one-sided - making it easier for the US to extradite suspects from Britain than it is for UK authorities to secure the return of accused criminals from America.

Andrew MacKinlay, the respected Labour MP for Thurrock, is to quit the Commons at the next election in protest after backbenchers fell in behind the Government, and failed to vote to block Mr McKinnon's extradition during a recent debate in parliament.

So great are the concerns in the US that President Barack Obama recently announced the creation of a "cyber tsar" to co-ordinate defence against hacking attacks.

"We are attacked millions of times a day and the attacks range from the nuisance to the highly sophisticated," said Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. Most recently, US government sites came under sustained assault on July 4 in attacks for which some suspect North Korea.

As America goes on the warpath against a daily battery of cyber attacks, his family and lawyers fear that he could be made an example in a Virginia courtroom should he lose his battle against being sent to the US.

Mr McKinnon has offered to plead guilty in the UK to misuse of computer systems but the British courts have so far rejected that proposal, saying that the alleged crimes and damage were committed on US networks. In America he faces far more serious charges of fraud and criminal damage. "Gary accepts he was hacking but he has always insisted that he was looking for evidence of UFOs in the systems he was accessing," said his lawyer, Karen Todner.

The High Court will give its judgment on Friday on his appeal against extradition. If he loses, Ms Todner plans to take the case to the House of Lords or European Court of Human Rights.

She said that Mr McKinnon would find himself under "enormous pressure" to settle his case with a plea bargain in the US as it would be rare for an accused foreigner to secure bail and his legal costs could be prohibitive. "He does not want to plea bargain but it will be very difficult for him," she said.

He will be tried in the Eastern District of the state of Virginia, a jurisdiction that has a reputation for tough judges and sentencing policies.

Under the US indictment, Mr McKinnon is charged with hacking into Army computers in nearly 20 military and six Nasa facilities, installing software, deleting thousands of files and copying account information. He allegedly committed damage that exceeded $600,000 in conduct that "significantly disrupted governmental function".

There is no suggestion that he operated in conjunction with enemy states or terrorists. But as such groups stage regular cyber assaults on sensitive networks, US officials emphasise that any hacking operations can severely compromise national security.

In arguing for his case to be heard in Britain, Mr McKinnon's supporters have emphasised the health and mental dangers in US prisons for an Asperger's patient. The National Autism Society submitted expert testimony that he would be vulnerable, disturbed, subject to bullying and could be regarded as rebellious or obstructive in jail.

The US department of justice has assured the Home Office, which supports the extradition, that Mr McKinnon would be properly treated for his condition.

But in a 30-page affidavit to the High Court, Joel Sickler, head of the Justice Advocacy Group in Virginia, quoted examples of other prisoners in US prisons to argue that Mr McKinnon "will almost certainly be exposed to neglectful care".

He said that the US bureau of prisons "has a well-known and terrible track record of delivering on any type of health care required by an inmate, especially those with some form of mental impairment".

Alaskan commemorates the day he was blinded by a bear

From the Juneau Empire:

"'After the bear left, I put my hand up to my face. It was really a mess. I felt bone tissue and flesh. My face between the bridge of my nose and the middle of my forehead was gone. My left eye was hanging down on my cheek and my right eye was gone. I thought, 'My God, I've been blinded.'"

- Lee Hagmeier, "A Boy is Blinded" in Larry Kanifuf's "Alaska Bear Tales"

July 27 is the 50th anniversary of the bear mauling that blinded former Auke Bay resident Lee Hagmeier (pictured). But rather than stay bitter, Hagmeier plans to commemorate the day with friends during receptions at the downtown and Douglas libraries.

"I'm enjoying being back in Juneau and looking forward to seeing people I haven't seen for some 50 years," the 67-year-old said. "I'm looking forward to seeing old friends."

Hagmeier's longtime friend, Doug Dobyns - who was with him the day he was blinded - will be at the gatherings to celebrate his friend's accomplishments.

"While it is not a celebration, this is a chance to commemorate the date of the event and also congratulate Lee for the achievements in his life," Dobyns said.

Another purpose of the commemoration is to thank the city of Juneau. At the time Hagmeier was blinded, the Territorial Sportsmen of Alaska created a trust fund to cover his medical and educational expenses.

"They really enabled me to get the surgeries and the years of education I did obtain," Hagmeier said. "The fund really opened up a lot of opportunities. I can't give enough thanks to the people of Juneau and how they helped out, so I'm very deeply indebted to them."

Hagmeier was only 17 when he lost his sight. He and Dobyns were fishing about a mile up McGinnis Creek, near Montana Creek, when Hagmeier decided to go into the woods - "with the express purpose of killing a bear," he says in Larry Kanifuf's "Alaska Bear Tales."

Hagmeier's story is completely documented in the 1983 collection of stories, but in short, a brown bear came out of the alders and mauled him.

"It picked me up by the leg three times and shook me, once under the shoulder," Hagmeier described. "Then I played dead, and it had bit me across the face. ... It's an incident where you really aren't thinking. It's just happening."

Aside from being immediately blinded, Hagmeier sustained minor injuries on his knee and under his left arm. After attempting to walk 30 to 40 feet, the pair decided Dobyns should go for help.

"Doug really did a heroic effort in making me comfortable and in obtaining assistance," Hagmeier said. "He was very mindful under terrific stress."

Dobyns blazed a trail with his knife out to McGinnis Creek, then downstream to Montana Creek, where he found two fishermen, Clark Meriwether and Ralph Shafer. He brought Shafer to help carry Hagmeier out, and Meriwether went to the sawmill on Montana Creek to call for an ambulance. A few men from the sawmill also came to assist.

"Actually, they pondered whether they should believe this guy," Hagmeier said.

Looking back on the incident, Hagmeier advises all outdoorsmen to be mindful when tromping through the woods.

"Unless there's reason, avoid getting into very thick vegetation where there's less visibility," he said. "For me, I thought since I had a rifle, I had a false sense of power. The gun seduced me into thinking (I was immortal) - and I was 17."

Since the incident, Hagmeier and Dobyns have remained close friends. In fact, in 1999, 40 years after the incident, the pair returned to the site together.

"It was good to go back," Hagmeier said. "He and I got very close to the location, and Doug carved our initials in a tree. We gave each other a hug. Then we came out and walked back out."

Hagmeier said the revisit was a way to "kind of clean things up a bit."

"It was a way of undoing what had been," he said, "getting a fresher perspective of where you were currently, bringing more into the present and letting the past be."

IN THE OUTDOORS AGAIN

In addition to being well-traveled (to places such as the Philippines, Africa and Italy), Hagmeier has remained an avid outdoorsman.

While living in Juneau, Hagmeier took advantage of SAIL's and Orca's outdoor programs. He and his wife even did five one-week kayaking trips.

"I just enjoyed the camaraderie of being with other people, everybody accommodating each other's abilities or disabilities," Hagmeier said. "It felt wonderful to be out in the woods again. SAIL and Orca are wonderful programs."

In 1999, Hagmeier was even the first documented blind person to hike the Chilkoot Trail, and the following year, he hiked the Resurrection Trail on the Kenai Peninsula.

"He always wanted to get out and do more - more hiking and more camping," Christy Hagmeier said of her husband. "Lee and I have had a tremendous number of adventures together, and we will continue to do so."

Before retiring, Hagmeier enlisted local longtime friend Pat Leamer to hike some of the most challenging mountains in Juneau: Mount McGinnis, Thunder Mountain and Mount Jumbo.

"I'm probably the only blind person who's ever been up there," Hagmeier said.

"Anybody who has climbed those mountains knows what it's like to go up them," Leamer added. "So I admire his courage, and I admire his trust in me as a leader."

As far as how a blind person hikes a mountain, Leamer said he typically opens the back pocket of his backpack so Hagmeier can hold on during difficult terrain. Leamer said he has come to appreciate his friend's uncanny sense of his surroundings.

"Any place he goes, he's able to describe probably far more deeper than most of us," Leamer said of his friend. "When we're out hiking, he knows whether we're in the deep forest. He knows if we're on the ridges.

"On East Glacier Trail there are number of steps, and he has kept track of how many steps and what sequence they're in. He knows about the birds he hears in the forest. He just makes things come alive when you're with him."

On one occasion, Leamer wanted to get off to an early start in the morning.

"Lee called me and said, 'Pat, it's dark then. We can't get started then,'" Leamer described. "I said, 'Lee, what the hell difference does it make? You're blind!' He said, 'Yeah, but I want my guide to be able to see where we're going.'"

Leamer said he and Hagmeier have shared many laughs and "a lot of good times" over the years.

"It's not often in life that you find a friend who you can be that close to," Leamer said.
After recovering from his wounds, Hagmeier immediately started school at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Mass., where he completed his last year of high school.

"I was bewildered and confused," Hagmeier said. "It took time to get around in my new reality."

Hagmeier said when he first put his finger on a Braille, it felt like a blob.

"It's easy to learn the concept of Braille," Hagmeier said. "But it's more difficult to get to where you're fingers are sensitive enough to distinguish the pattern."

At Perkins, Hagmeier found a niche in the track team, where he and his partner set the school record for the 2-mile run - 11.5 minutes on two separate occasions.

After graduation, Hagmeier continued school for five more years at Chico State College in California. He said he surprised himself, because at Juneau-Douglas High School he was a C student, but at Chico State, he graduated first in his class - suma cum laude, with a 3.96 grade-point average.

"That's what you can do I guess when you're not distracted," Hagmeier said, "not distracted by forests and beaches - and pretty girls."

Later, Hagmeier earned a Master of Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling and Doctorate of Educational Psychology from the University of Washington as well as worked as a prevocational specialist for the Northwest Regional Center for Deaf Blind Children and as a ___ at the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in Anchorage (1978-84). He also trained for four weeks at Seeing Eye Inc., a training facility for seeing eye dogs in Morristown, N.J.

Hagmeier and his wife, Christy - a deaf student he met at the University of Washington and married in 1980 - moved back to Juneau in 1984 to work for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

"He really struggled through one of the best universities in the nation, all the way through to get a Ph.D., and I very much admired him for that," Christy Hagmeier said. "There weren't any complaints. There was never any 'Woe is me.' He's just been a wonderful person to be with. We clearly are soulmates."

The couple stayed in Juneau until 2003, when Hagmeier retired to Lacey, Wash.

"You keep on pushing forward and you can usually do most anything that you want to," Hagmeier said of his accomplishments. "Put one foot in front of the other and you can overcome most difficulties."

Leamer holds his friend in high regard.

"I think what was so neat about Lee is that he has a master's and a doctorate, and he's a very knowledgeable person," Leamer said. "But when you're out with him, he's very humble, and he meets you where you're at. You just feel very comfortable in his presence."

Columnist says California budget cuts hurt those who need the most help, including children with disabilities

Michael Stetz' column for the San Diego Uniion-Tribune:

With 18 children, the Hauers have to worry about money for food, electricity, gas, clothing

And now toothaches.

Or, heaven forbid, a root canal. They cost a lot.

They particularly worry about this when it comes to their son Clifton. He must be fed through a tube. Chewing helps keep teeth clean, his mother, Penny Hauer, explained, so Clifton's teeth are more vulnerable to decay.

Clifton is 31 and has cerebral palsy. He's in a wheelchair. The Hauers adopted him at age 9. He's one of dozens of special-needs children the Hauers have adopted and cared for at their Rancho San Diego home over the years.

Sure, the children bring challenges.

But the state of California just added another by wiping out dental care and other health services for disabled and low-income adults older than 21, such as Clifton.
You know the story: The state is broke and this is one way it decided to fix the problem.

The reduction in Medi-Cal benefits, which took place June 30, will save about $110 million. It's not a lot for the state, which is trying to close a $26 billion deficit. But that coverage means a lot to the Hauers.

“We just pray every night that we don't see any decay,” said Chuck Hauer, Penny's husband.

Budget stories can be impersonal. Boring. Hard to understand. Penny Hauer thinks it's important “to put a face” on them.

At her home, I met 35-year-old Charity, whom the Hauers adopted at 6 months of age. She has cerebral palsy.

I met Cherry, now 43, the oldest of the Hauer's kids. She suffered a brain injury when she fell off monkey bars as a child.

I met Curtis, 24, who has cerebral palsy and can't talk.

If I get a toothache, I can go screaming to a dentist. Some of the Hauer's children?
“They can't tell you if they have a problem,” Penny Hauer said. So routine dental care, such as cleanings, is important. Now it's been axed.

The Hauers care for 12 adults they adopted as children. They have six other children younger than 21 living with them who also are disabled; as minors, they can still get dental coverage.

The Hauers have made the children a part of the family. They've fallen in love with each of them. They hate to see such kids be alone or unloved. They've adopted more than 40 so far. They've seen 13 die.

“All are good kids. All get along,” said Chuck Hauer, who's 71 and retired from an Ohio tire company. “Just some are a lot of work.”
I have to admit I was initially leery of stopping over because I thought the scene might be too depressing.

Hardly.

I got there at lunch, when the children were eating baloney and cheese sandwiches. The older children helped the younger ones.

Penny Hauer joked with the kids. She rubbed their backs. The youngest, Caleb, who is 9 and has muscular dystrophy, stood by her side, talking about his favorite video game, “Need for Speed.”

“You won't see an immaculate house here,” Penny Hauer said. “But you do see kids who are healthy and happy.”

The Hauers make do from the Social Security assistance their children receive. It ranges from $340 to $700 per month per child, depending on the disability. The Hauers get Social Security as well.

Their children's health care is provided by Medi-Cal and Medicaid.

The Hauers are probably saving taxpayers' money by caring for the children at home. Institutionalized care is normally more expensive, said Ann Menasche, an attorney with Disability Rights California.

Adults who live in skilled nursing homes will still get dental care. “It's completely irrational,” she said, of the cuts.

In addition to nixing dental care, the state no longer pays for speech therapy and optician services for disabled and low-income adults.

There's no more podiatric or psychology services either. In all, nine services once provided were axed.

The Hauers mostly worry about the dental care, though. That's because those bills can be staggering. Many of the children, because of their disabilities, need to be put under when undergoing dental work. That makes one option, going to a community health clinic, not possible, Penny Hauer said.

She stressed to me that this is not just about her family.

“It's about all of the adults out there who need this care. What are they going to do?”

They're going to have to go without or fork over the money, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a health-care consumer advocacy organization.

“It's tragic,” he said. “But these are the choices our elected leaders are making.”
He thinks it's fiscally stupid, too. If these people don't get routine dental care, they can develop more severe problems, such as gum disease. And it's not simply about having a nice set of teeth. Major health problems can originate from the teeth and gums, health experts say.

It's no tiny pool of people getting hit. As many as 3.4 million could see some of their care cut.

I met 12 of them.

I thought you should too.

College student in Indonesia explains her experiences with inaccessibility there

The article from Inside Indonesia by Eva Rahmi Kasim (evakasim@yahoo.com), who works with the Indonesian Department of Social Affairs and with the Indonesian Foundation for Caring for Children with Disabilities (Yayasan Pembinaan Anak Cacat). She is also on the boards of many organisations of disabled persons. Further information about her is available at http://www.evakasim.blogspot.com/ or http://www.evakasim.multiply.com/

Since it moved to a new campus at Depok outside Jakarta in 1987, the prestigious University of Indonesia (UI) has had several opportunities to design buildings accessible to all, and to implement policies which provide for people with disabilities. Yet disabled students and staff are still waiting for changes which will ensure they can function like other members of the university.

UI is famous in Indonesia for its excellent facilities, equipment, and teaching staff. As a result, many people set their sights on studying there. Among them are many people with disabilities. The aspirations of these disabled people are valid: they too have the right to enrol in higher education, a right guaranteed in various laws including the 1945 Constitution.

Unfortunately, the university does not have any written policy which acknowledges the presence of disabled students or protects their rights
Every year, students with disabilities enrol at the ‘Yellow Jacket’ university, as UI is often called. Every year, their numbers are rising. The degree and type of disability they experience differs. They are and can become fully-functioning academic members of the university if they make an all-out effort, but they face many obstacles, beginning the day they register. Unfortunately, the university does not have any written policy which acknowledges the presence of disabled students or protects their rights.

I still clearly remember the period between 1987 and early 1990 when I studied at the university’s Depok campus. The campus only opened in 1987, and many of the present facilities had not yet been built. But there was a strong family spirit in the academic community.

At this time, I lived at a student boarding house in the Pondok Cina area. It was more than one kilometre from there to where I studied, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Politics. One kilometre is not far for most people. But for a disabled person on crutches it was a long journey, and an exhausting one.

I had to plan to set out from my boarding house long before lectures began. Fortunately, I did not have to make my own way to campus every day because sometimes a kind person would stop and give me a lift. They were not always people I knew personally, but I knew they were members of the university community. Among them were students from various faculties, and even the vice-chancellor at the time, Professor Sujudi. The same thing sometimes happened when I was heading back to the boarding house. May Allah reward their kindness.

The long walk to campus was only the beginning of the difficulties, however. Most lecture rooms were on upper floors. It was difficult to reach lecture rooms on the second and third floors. To conserve my energy I used to wait four hours or more on level three rather than go down the stairs after a morning lecture and have to go back up again for a lecture later in the day.

Occasionally, during the exam season, just before an exam began it was announced that the exam would be held in another building on level two or three. I would panic. The change meant that I needed time and energy to reach a new room. I was not given extra time. This wrecked my concentration for the exam, especially when I watched my friends setting out at a run for the new room.

Occasionally, during the exam season, just before an exam began, it was announced that the exam would be held in another building on level two or three. I would panic
In 2002 I returned to the Depok campus of UI for the first time after graduating from there in 1990. I had been invited as a visiting lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Politics. The UI campus, especially this particular faculty, had changed a great deal. There were many new buildings and the atmosphere on campus felt different. There were many people about but none of them greeted me, even when I needed help with the stairs. Luckily the department head who had invited me came to my aid, so I did not have to ask anyone for assistance. However, I still had to make an effort to reach the lecture room because there was no lift or ramp and my legs were not as strong as they used to be.

Although there had been many changes, the design of the campus buildings and lecture rooms still does not address the needs of disabled people.

It is not good enough that the university ignores the needs of those in its own community who have disabilities. It is not good enough that the university accepts disabled people as students and then allows them to wage their own battle to stay there and complete their education.

The university authorities should respond to the needs of their disabled students by formulating a written policy which all of its citizens respect. From the moment disabled students begin their registration, through to attending lectures, going to and from their accommodation right through to the completion of their studies, the university should ensure that they have easy access to all facilities. Accessibility includes things like design and arrangement of lecture rooms so that they are within easy reach of all students; lecture materials in a range of formats; examinations which are not exclusively in print form; availability of wheel-chair access to toilet facilities and so on.

The university should not view these requirements as anything unusual or special. They should be seen as a norm, something basic for accommodating the variety of needs that members of the university have. I am sure that many of the senior staff in the university have seen these kinds of facilities on the campuses overseas where they took their doctorates or masters degrees.

I have suggested to the relevant people at UI, including the Vice-Chancellor Professor Gumilar and the Dean of Social Sciences and Politics, Professor Bambang Sergy, that they should give thought to the needs of the disabled members of their academic community.

The road to make UI a disability friendly campus is still a long and tortuous one. Almost every year since 2002 I have returned to the campus as a visiting lecturer. But there has been little progress in providing access for disabled people even though the Vice-Chancellor repeatedly says that UI will be an international university and open for all.

Florida family network advocates for disabled people there

From the Pensacola News-Journal:

There are more than 18,000 people in Florida waiting to receive services from the state’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities.

This year, they found an advocate in Mike Coonan.

“In January, I started Left Behind in Florida, a network of families with developmentally disabled children on the state’s wait list,” he said. “We want that list eliminated.”

When Coonan, 64, and his family moved to Pensacola from Michigan in 2004, they were surprised to learn the state had a list, and more surprised to find out it could be years before families might receive services.

“We didn’t know we’d be left to fend for ourselves,” he said.

Mike Coonan’s son, Matt, 26, is on the list with about 1,000 people in the four-county area. He has epilepsy and autism, but is high-functioning. He lives at home but works at a local supermarket with the help of a job coach and mentoring by his parents, Mike and Prudence Coonan.

However, Matt Coonan’s autism causes him to have problems with judgment, communication, social skills and decision-making, his father said.

“While we are alive, Matt has the life only few people dream of,” Mike Coonan said. “After we are dead, Matt’s opportunities and quality of life are grim. He will need supported, community living.”

The Coonans said they are not seeking help for their son while they are alive. They enjoy coaching and caring for him.

“We are not fighting for this for our son,” Mike Coonan said. “We can handle his needs. We are fighting for families who cannot.”

Groups like Left Behind in Florida need a strong voice, said Karen Clay of Tampa, former Public Policy and Advocacy Committee chairwoman for the Florida Developmental Disabilities Council.

“People need to understand the cost of keeping a person at home is far less than it is for a more-restrictive environment, such as an institution,” she said. “Other states have thought outside the box on this, but our state has not.”

The bottom line is making a heart connection, said Clay, whose son, Mike, 29, is developmentally disabled. He is not on the waiting list, but Clay understands the parents’ frustration.

“People, not just legislators, need to understand they are judged by how they treat the least of us,” she said. “These are not worthless people.”

The Agency for Persons with Disabilities serves more than 30,000. Its Web site said those on the wait list will be enrolled as the money becomes available.

Meanwhile, parents like Michelle Gross of Milton wait. Her daughter, Christina, 29, has been on the list since 2004.

“Christina has minor cerebral palsy and developmental delays, but she had a job stuffing envelopes and mailing packages before we moved here from Missouri,” she said. “I can’t get that in Florida.”

With Left Behind in Florida, a nonprofit group, families on the wait list can connect and get information about services.

“Until Left Behind, I had no idea we had a Family Care Council or programs available for pay,” Gross said. “Without it, agencies and legislators wouldn’t have given us any thought. It has taught me how to be an advocate.”

Coonan said they are working to get:

-- Quarterly letters to wait-list families and meetings with agency staff.

-- A Web site on the agency’s efforts to end the list.

-- A statewide summit with state and local groups that assist persons with developmental disabilities.

-- A champion in the legislature.

-- “When our children graduate from high school, they graduate into oblivion,” Mike Coonan said. “There is nothing for them, not even a day program. We don’t want to be invisible any longer.”

iPods being used to teach kids with Asperger's how to better fit in

From The Star-Tribune in Minneapolis:

Sue Pederson knows that the teenage boys in her treatment program have trouble making conversation. They may not know what to talk about; or once they get started, when to shut up.

That's one of the striking features of people with Asperger's syndrome: they struggle with the social skills that come so naturally to others.

But about a year ago, Pederson, a psychologist, and her colleagues at the Fraser Child & Family Center in Minneapolis found a new way to reach these students -- right through their headphones.

They're using iPods, which play music and videos, to teach them how to fit in.

It may have started out as a form of entertainment, but Pederson says this kind of technology is turning into an unexpected boon for children and teenagers with special needs. The devices, it turns out, can be crammed with the kind of information they need to get through the day. While it's still experimental, she said, "I think it's going to spread like wildfire."

With Asperger's, a form of autism, people lack the inner voice that tells them what is, or is not, appropriate behavior. At Fraser, Pederson's staff came up with the idea of programming iPods to act as an electronic substitute for that missing voice.

In this case, the staff helped students create a series of short videos and slide shows on how to behave in different social settings. Some are barely 30 seconds long: How to carry on a conversation ("Let the other person talk AND change the topic..."); how to respect other people's boundaries, and think before they speak ("Use your filter!")

In the world of special education, these scripts are known as "social stories," used to teach basic social skills. "It's a mental checklist for things to think about when you're interacting with other people," explained Mandy Henderson, who works with Fraser's Asperger's program.

As part of the Fraser project, the students can transfer the videos onto their iPods, and replay them over and over, to drive the lessons home.

Jack O'Riley, of Eagan, said it's just what his 15-year-old son P.J. needed. "This really hit the mark," he said. Like many kids with Asperger's, P.J. (pictured) is baffled by the normal rhythms of social interaction: in conversation, he may blurt out too much information, or say nothing at all, his father says.

At the same time, P.J. is easily distracted and has a hard time staying on task, another common trait of Asperger's. For years, O'Riley posted laminated signs around the house to remind his son how to get through the day -- take a shower, brush his teeth, get ready for school.

Now, with the videos developed at Fraser, "we can plug this stuff into his little 'extended memory,'" O'Riley said. P.J. is building a library of videos on his iPhone, so they'll be at his fingertips. "He can pull up a topic on his 'to do list' and find everything he needs to know," his father said.

Sixteen-year-old Myles Lund of Lakeville, another student in the Fraser program, said he's learned to use the iPod to help control his emotions by playing his favorite music. "It helps take my mind off of it," he said. At the same time, Myles, who says he rarely initiates a conversation, agrees the videos can help in social situations. "I just pull out my iPod and go through a list of things to talk about."

The staffers at Fraser came up with the idea after they noticed how students with Asperger's would use iPods as a calming device, to block out noise or other distractions. "We just started thinking how else can we use this technology," said Pederson. They got a $7,500 private grant to buy the iPods and other equipment, and started experimenting.

They're not alone.

Jim Ball, an adviser to the Autism Society of America, said similar projects are popping up around the country. Some people are designing adaptations for smart phones, Palm Pilots and other devices to fill the same need, he said.

"This is just another way of prompting kids when they're in situations when they don't know what to do," said Ball, who works with autistic children in New Jersey. "The technology gives them the ability to be independent."

Comfortable with gadgets

Ball noted the devices could work especially well with Asperger's kids, because they're often far more comfortable with electronic gadgets than they are with people. "It's a machine; they don't have to react to it, they don't have to understand it," Ball said. "They just need to know how to work it. And they do."

Another advantage, especially for teenagers, is that they won't stand out using this kind of device, noted Pederson. "If you walk into a family reunion and you've got a teenager with an iPod, nobody bats an eye," she said.

Barbara Luskin, a psychologist with the Autism Society of Minnesota, agrees. "Adolescents with Asperger's, like all adolescents, don't want to look different," she said. If the device just blends in with everyone else's, she said, "you're much more likely to use it."

So far, there appear to be few commercial products aimed at this market, but that may be changing. The Conover Co., a special-education software company in Appleton, Wis., recently adapted its "Functional Skills System" for the iPod Touch. But the package, which sells for $3,500, is mainly marketed to schools and other organizations.

Fraser, meanwhile, is hoping to get another grant to expand its iPod program.

Ball, of the Autism Society, predicts this is just the beginning. "I think that technology is limitless in its potential for working with kids," he said.

Kansas teen with several learning disabilities wins "Best Teen Chef in the Country"

From Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas:

SHAWNEE, Kan. — Sammy Jo Claussen (pictured) never gave up.

The “best teen chef in the country” suffers from dyslexia, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder.

Claussen, who graduated in May from Shawnee Mission North High School, never let her problems get in the way of her love of cooking. And because of the can-do attitude, she’s been able to rub shoulders with Food Network celebrities Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri and Mario Batali.

She received the title of best teen chef in the country in May after winning the Art Institute of Charlotte’s Best Teen Chef final round competition.

Claussen is an inspiration for anyone with dyslexia, ADHD, ADD or bipolar disorder.

“I know people that are dyslexic that say they can’t do this because of it, but I didn’t let that get to me,” she said. “If I can do it then they can do it, too. I never gave up; no one should give up on themselves.”

She fell in love with cooking as a young girl during visits with her grandmother.

“I always liked staying in the kitchen and helping,” she said. “What kid doesn’t like getting dirty making things?”

In her junior year of high school, she began attending the Shawnee Mission school district’s Broadmoor Technical Center’s Culinary Arts program.

“When I started off with the cooking, I couldn’t read anything in the book. I had to have my mom reading it to me,” she said. “I started watching the Food Network, and that’s how I noticed words and how they would do things. Now, I can understand more things than I used to. I’ve progressed so much on my dyslexia. At the beginning of high school, I was at a fourth-grade reading level. My reading went up, not to where it should be, but I’m in the high school level now.”

To compete in the national challenge, Claussen first had to compete in March in a regional competition in Kansas City, which was no small feat.

“They gave us what we had to cook for regionals, and I practiced that for two months,” she said. “Then I found out I had a broken wrist, so I had to practice with holding a knife and all that stuff differently. A lot of people thought I was an easy target, but there is no way I would go down like that. I gave 110 percent.”

Claussen won the regional competition by a single point.

For the final round of competition, Claussen had to create a soup, salad and entrée in an hour and a half. Each competitor had to prepare catfish for their entrée.

Claussen breaded and pan-fried her dish, then created a liquid-free sauce and side dishes. She used her creativity to perfect the presentation of her dishes.

“They gave us a lot of yellow. When designing a plate, you have to have a lot of color to look at,” she said. “I had to decide how to get color on the place. That’s where the sauce came in.”

After winning the competition, Claussen was whisked away for interviews and photos.

“I had been up since 8 and running back and forth. It really wore me out,” she said.

Prized pickings

As part of her winnings, Claussen received a full-tuition scholarship to study culinary arts at the International Culinary School at The Art Institutes International-Kansas City, along with a daylong internship at The Food Network studios and a seven-course meal at a Food Network chef’s restaurant.

Claussen participated in her internship in June.

“I got to see how they run things in the kitchen and meet staff,” she said. “They were really nice and open-armed. They showed me new things and stuff I had forgotten so I could bring it to my school now.”

Claussen watched Rachel Ray tape a segment for one of her Food Network shows and helped to prepare for Guy Fieri’s cooking segment.

Later, Claussen dined on a seven-course meal at Mario Batali’s Del Posto restaurant.

“I wish I would have won bigger pants,” she joked.

Now back home, Claussen recently began her second week as a full-time student at the Art Institute.

“It’s very interesting, a lot of homework, but it’s always nice to hearing people saying, ‘It’s good to see you back in the kitchen,’” she said. “I really like the school and it’s a great school. And I don’t have to worry about paying; I can study more and do homework.”

After receiving her bachelor’s degree from the institute, she plans to work as an executive chef and travel the world while taking in different cultures and getting ideas for dishes.

After her travels, Claussen plans to open a Western-style restaurant in Texas.

Actor Hugh Dancy discusses how he embodied his character with Asperger's in the film "Adam"

From The New York Times:

LONDON -- At first the British actor Hugh Dancy (pictured) seemed to be entirely wrong to play the title character in “Adam,” said Max Mayer, the film’s writer and director. The trouble was that Mr. Dancy, 34, seemed too charming, too intuitive, too easy in himself — just right for a movie like “Ella Enchanted” (he played Prince Charmont) but not so perfect for a character who was not so perfect.

But Mr. Dancy managed to convince Mr. Mayer in a long and intense meeting that he was right for Adam, a socially inept, emotionally shuttered young man with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. “We talked for a couple of hours, and I finally realized that he had the requisite insecurities and whatnot,” is how Mr. Mayer explained it.

The low-key film, which is to be released on July 29, was shot on a shoestring in less than a month and is a departure from the sort of big-budget, easy-pleasing movies Mr. Dancy has specialized in lately. These include “Confessions of a Shopaholic” (he played a handsome magazine editor and love interest) and “The Jane Austen Book Club” (he played a handsome science fiction fan and love interest).

His delicate features and Byronic curls might scream “romantic comedy” and make him seem like a natural heir to older heartthrobs like Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. But Mr. Dancy’s brain yearns for more. He has also taken less visible parts, as an idealistic teacher in Rwanda in “Beyond the Gates,” for instance, and like many British actors who move easily from film to television to stage, he shudders at being typecast or pigeonholed.

“I’m of the type that will often find myself, if I’m doing one thing, tending to wish I was doing another thing,” he said in a recent interview over several glasses of water in a private restaurant (you have to be a member to get in) in West London.

To class-conscious Britons Mr. Dancy would be considered posh, meaning that he went at a young age to a fancy boarding school, Winchester, and then to Oxford, and that he speaks with a classic BBC accent. He grew up partly in the Midlands and partly farther south, with a father who is a prominent philosopher and professor and a mother who works in academic publishing.

He describes himself as an unhappy, indifferent, rule-breaking student at boarding school. Sentenced to run more than three miles each morning as punishment for something or another, he took to doubling back on his tracks as a way to get around it. Caught, he was ordered as further punishment to report to the school theater and make himself useful.

That was how he fell into acting. “I didn’t want to act,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was waiting in the wings, like ‘All About Eve.’ It was a refuge, and I found to my surprise that I liked these people.”

He also realized that he was surprisingly good at it. “Years later I found a letter that my dad sent out saying that they had gone to this play in horror, expecting me to slump loafishly around the stage,” Mr. Dancy said. “But obviously it worked out, or otherwise I wouldn’t have carried on.”

He studied literature at Oxford, decided not to go to drama school and began working at a bar in London. He talked his way into a meeting with a casting director, who sent him to an agent, who agreed right then to take him on, after what must have been an early tour de force presentation by Mr. Dancy.

“When you’re starting out as an actor, 50 percent of it is the way you present yourself,” he said.

Some television work followed, including a part as “an Italian-English sidekick to a brutal murderer,” as he put it, in a violent television thriller. He has played the Earl of Essex and David Copperfield on television, Sir Galahad in a film about King Arthur, and a young man caught up in the world of werewolves in a movie called “Blood and Chocolate.” Onstage he has played, among other things, a World War I British Army officer in the 2007 Broadway production of “Journey’s End.”

“Adam,” in which Mr. Dancy’s character embarks on an unlikely romance with a comely neighbor, played by Rose Byrne (pictured), presented a different challenge altogether. Mr. Dancy had to make the character sympathetic and the situation believable while remaining true to the limits of his condition. In other words, while Adam can learn how other people feel and modify his behavior accordingly, he cannot feel — or be seen to feel — the emotions himself. He can only grow so far.

“We tried to keep both the integrity of the character and the accuracy with regard to Asperger’s and also maintain him as a viable romantic possibility,” Mr. Mayer said. That is where Mr. Dancy’s “translucent intelligence” came in, he added, and the actor’s ability to quietly convey thoughts and emotions.

“He has the confidence to do nothing except think,” Mr. Mayer said. “He has a basic but very rare quality in that he doesn’t feel he has to manufacture emotions in front of the camera, he can allow himself to just be.” Mr. Mayer has revised his early analysis of Mr. Dancy as a smooth, glib golden boy.

“He’s created a really good social character that he can use, and that’s a face he presents to the world,” Mr. Mayer said. “But deeply and internally he’s much more complicated than that. He has dark and light and charm and insecurity all at the same time.”

Mr. Dancy said he had to put aside his normal acting instincts to learn to play a character who lacks empathy. “The nature of the condition is that it’s anti-empathetic,” Mr. Dancy said. “So there isn’t something you can empathize your way into. You have to study it and study it and talk to people until it sinks in.”

And that is what he did: he read books about people with Asperger’s, met and spent time with people with Asperger’s, and talked the character through exhaustively with Mr. Mayer, who had done his own research.

At the same time he had to play a real character, not a type, not simply Person With Asperger’s. “Somebody asked me, outside of this condition, who is this person?” he explained. “There was something delicate and strange and mysterious about the character. He was not just some screenwriter’s vague idea of what a man with Asperger’s might be like, but someone with a very specific set of characteristics.”

Mr. Dancy is polite but guarded about his personal life, the main new feature of which is his engagement to Claire Danes, the American actress. He divides his time between London and New York and has rejected the notion of moving to Hollywood.

As for what is next, “there’s no great conscious plan,” he said. “I don’t think you can afford to have a very complicated plan as an actor.”

He backtracked a little.

“As a game plan, I want to find something different from what I’m doing right now or what I’ve just done.”

A new college grad writes about her Tourette's and the accomplishments she made when people believed in her

By Julie Bishop, Lee College, class of 2009, who majored in computer-aided drafting/design major, writing in the Education Life section of The New York Times:

She is onstage belting out karaoke and actually sounding good. She walks in a relay to raise money for cancer research and hands water to Special Olympics students. She organizes and participates in a fund-raiser to help the underprivileged continue their educations, and assists with the cleanup after Hurricane Ike. She is an honors student, an officer in four campus organizations and a member of others.

Who is she? It’s just me. I guess I’m not a “retard” after all. Let me explain.

As a child, I had a then-undiagnosed neurological condition now called Tourette’s syndrome. Mostly I grimaced, gestured weirdly and made the occasional distracting sound. I also had a visual impairment. People at school considered me strange. I would hear, “She’s retarded, she’s not going to achieve anything.”

I believed it and really didn’t try.

I graduated from high school without being able to read entire paragraphs. I decided I didn’t want my children ever to find out, so I learned to de-scramble by reading children’s books — one sentence a page — to my twins while they were still in my womb.To complicate matters more, I sustained a head injury in a car accident that made my condition worse. The children’s father had to take custody.It wasn’t until several years later, at 36, that I was finally diagnosed with severe Tourette’s syndrome, and dyslexia.

By this time, the disorder had progressed to severe tics and uncontrollable muscle spasms, which resulted in my limbs’ flailing out of control and frequent vocal outbursts. It was not unusual to give myself bruises and broken bones. However, I was sure I was not stupid.

My turning point began in 2007. I had just been abandoned by my second husband and left penniless and living in a small camper infested by mice and bugs, in the middle of winter, without heat or hot water. I lost insurance to cover medications that could help tame symptoms. I was scared to death, and I knew I needed to get an education to be able to support myself. I enrolled at Lee College, the local community college, in Baytown, Tex.

Three people affected me so deeply with their compassion and willingness to help me succeed that I vowed to pay forward the same kindness to others.

Susan Precht, the lead education instructor, gave me a work-study job as a clerical assistant. She saw that my visual disabilities were standing in my way. She was certified to screen for Irlen syndrome, which affects perception of written materials. She determined I also have that disorder. This information enabled me to get educational support specific to my needs. I was given extra time to finish my projects, and private testing accommodation so I would not interrupt other students. It was not unusual for Tourette’s to affect me severely when I had to take a test. I had to be taken off campus in an ambulance two to three times a semester because of violent episodes. The whole campus could usually tell when it was a test day for me. Thank goodness the staff and others on campus had taken the time to get to know how to help me get through those times.

Clare Fleming, the special population director, assists low-income students, especially single parents and displaced homemakers. She was the first person I met at Lee College. She gave me information about organizations that helped me get a safe roof over my head and food in my stomach my first semester, and a lawyer to successfully plead my case for Social Security disability and Medicare (though no doctor will see me without secondary insurance, which I can’t afford).

And John Britt, the honors program coordinator, advised me to enter his program and discussed my dreams and goals. I was terrified, but I took the chance to move forward solely based on the confidence he seemed to have in me.

Since those first days on campus, I am proud to say, I have completed the program. The honors program afforded me the opportunity to have an essay appear in an academic journal published by the Texas State Historical Association, on an organization of women who keep literacy alive in Liberty, Tex. This spring I was one of four students inducted into the Lee College Hall of Fame, the highest honor the college bestows.

But the highlight of my educational journey was the commencement ceremony in May. I was a keynote speaker. I was very nervous, and my Tourette’s showed itself as usual. I twitched, stuttered and jerked all the way through my speech. I dislocated my shoulder, but I just kept going. When I finished, I was shocked when the entire room erupted in a standing ovation. It was a wonderful night I will always remember. I will receive my associate’s degree in August, at which point I have hopes of becoming a drafting instructor.

I have accomplished so much more than I ever dreamed possible. I almost allowed my disabilities to limit me, but with the good people who saw potential in me, I now believe in myself.

South Africa lags in HIV prevention

From The New York Times. In the picture, Even without government involvement, demand for circumcision has surged over the last year in Orange Farm, South Africa.

ORANGE FARM, South Africa — Young men have flocked by the thousands to this clinic for circumcisions, the only one of its kind in South Africa. Each of them lies down on one of seven closely spaced surgical tables, his privacy shielded only by a green curtain.

“I’ve done 53 in a seven-hour day, me, myself, personally,” said Dr. Dino Rech, who helped design the highly efficient surgical assembly line at this French-financed clinic for cutting off foreskins.

Circumcision has been proven to reduce a man’s risk of contracting H.I.V. by more than half. Yet two years after the World Health Organization recommended the surgery, the government here still does not provide it to help fight the disease or educate the public about its benefits.

Some other African nations are championing the procedure and bringing it to thousands. But in South Africa, the powerhouse country at the heart of the epidemic, the government has been notably silent, despite the withering international criticism the country has endured for its previous foot-dragging in fighting and treating AIDS.

“Countries around us with fewer resources, both human and financial, are able to achieve more,” said Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, the first director of South Africa’s national AIDS program in the mid-1990s under President Nelson Mandela. “I wish I understood why South Africa, which has an enviable amount of resources, is not able to respond to the epidemic the way Botswana and Kenya have.”

Even without government involvement, demand for the surgery, performed free under local anesthetic, has surged over the last year here at the Orange Farm clinic. The men are counseled to continue using condoms since circumcision provides partial, though substantial protection.

Men waited nervously one recent chilly morning for their turn. Most were hoping the procedure would help them stay healthy here in the nation with more H.I.V.-positive people than any other.

But some said they were also drawn by a surprising, if powerful, motivation: They had heard from recently circumcised friends that it makes for better sex. You last longer, they said. Your lovers think you’re cleaner and more exciting in bed.

“My girlfriend was nagging me about this,” said Shane Koapeng, 24. “So I was like, ‘O.K., let me do it.’ ”

As new H.I.V. infections have continued to outpace efforts to treat the sick in Africa, there is growing concern about the ballooning costs of treatment for an ever-expanding number of patients who need medicines for the rest of their lives. Almost two million people were newly infected in 2007 in sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the total of those living with H.I.V. in the region to 22 million, according to United Nations estimates.

The major international donors to AIDS programs, including the United States and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, are ready to pour money into male circumcision, but the countries have to be ready to accept the help.

“You can’t impose it from the outside, particularly such a sensitive intervention,” said the Global Fund’s executive director, Dr. Michel Kazatchkine.

Public health doctors agree that circumcising millions of men will be no simple task. Africa has a severe shortage of doctors and nurses, and circumcision is potentially a political and cultural minefield in countries where some ethnic groups practice it but others do not.

Still, some countries are showing it can be done. In Botswana, circumcision was largely stopped in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by British colonial-era administrators and Christian missionaries.

But Festus Mogae, who was president from 1998 to 2008, provided a critical endorsement of male circumcision just before he stepped down.

Over the past year, the government has trained medical teams to do circumcisions in all its public hospitals and aims by 2016 to have circumcised 470,000 males from infancy to age 49, which is 80 percent of the total number in that group.

Public awareness is being raised through advertisements on radio and television. Billboards have sprouted across the country featuring a star of the national youth soccer team.

“Men have started to flock to the hospitals,” said Dr. Khumo Seipone, director of H.I.V./AIDS prevention and care in Botswana’s Ministry of Health.

In Kenya, where the Luo do not generally practice circumcision, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, himself a Luo, encouraged the procedure and lobbied elders. The H.I.V. infection rate among Luo men is more than triple that of Kenyan men generally — 17.5 percent versus 5.6 percent.

“Anything that could help save lives needs to be tried,” Mr. Odinga said, adding that he had been circumcised.

So far, more than 20,000 men in Kenya have been circumcised in hospitals, dispensaries, village schools, social halls and tents. Teams of doctors, nurses and counselors have even taken boats to islands in Lake Victoria to circumcise Luo fishermen.

“If the Luo Council of Elders and local politicians had been against it, the government would not have dared endorse circumcision,” said Robert Bailey, the principal investigator on the Kenya male circumcision clinical trial.

In sharp contrast, male circumcision has no political champion here in South Africa, where the largest ethnic group, the Zulus, have generally not practiced it since the early 19th century, when it was abandoned due to protracted warfare, according to Daniel Halperin, an epidemiologist and medical anthropologist at Harvard University.

Thabo Masebe, a spokesman for President Jacob Zuma, said the Health Ministry must first set a policy on circumcision before Mr. Zuma, who took office in April, can take a position. Mr. Zuma is Zulu. The province of KwaZulu-Natal, the Zulu heartland, has the highest adult H.I.V. prevalence rate in the country, 39 percent, according to Unaids.

“The president gets involved when decisions are made,” Mr. Masebe said. “If the president spoke now, and when the time comes to make a policy, a different decision is taken, it wouldn’t sound good.”

The new health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, spoke at length about AIDS in a recent speech to Parliament but made no mention of male circumcision. Dr. Yogan Pillay, a senior official at the National Department of Health, said a policy was being drafted and would be put forward for discussion by the end of the month.

In March 2007, the World Health Organization concluded from rigorous clinical trials in Kenya, Uganda and here in Orange Farm township that male circumcision reduced female-to-male H.I.V. transmission by about 60 percent.

“This is an important landmark in the history of H.I.V. prevention,” the W.H.O. said at the time.

That same year, a committee of scientists, advocates and others advising the South African government recommended offering circumcisions as quickly as possible, perhaps by contracting with private doctors while public health workers were trained. Instead, the government set up a task force to study the issue, said Dr. Abdool Karim, a committee member.

The surgical methods developed in Orange Farm are now being copied in the region. Population Services International, which provides counseling at the Orange Farm clinic, is putting them into practice in Zimbabwe in collaboration with the Health Ministry there. It also received $50 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to work with the governments of Zambia and Swaziland in the hope of circumcising some 650,000 men in those two countries.

South Africa has made strides in recent years, and now provides antiretroviral therapy to more people with AIDS than any other developing country.

But this is not the first time its policies have lagged behind. The country delayed for years providing antiretroviral medicines to treat AIDS under its former president, Thabo Mbeki, who denied the scientific consensus about the viral cause of the disease. Harvard researchers estimated that the government would have prevented the premature deaths of 330,000 South Africans earlier in the decade if it had provided the drugs.

“South Africa has no shortage of scientists,” said Olive Shisana, chief executive officer of South Africa’s government-financed Human Sciences Research Council. “We have a shortage of people willing to take the evidence that exists and use it for public health.”

Santa Rosa, Calif., faces hundreds of ADA violations, possible $3 million pricetag to fix them

From The Press-Democrat:

The city of Santa Rosa is facing hundreds of violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act and a potential bill of well over $3 million to correct them.

Two areas of most concern to the city are the possible need to make additional sidewalk curb cuts at street intersections and to rebuild the access ramp at City Hall.

The violations were identified by a team of federal inspectors who combed through city buildings including City Hall, the regional treatment plant on Llano Road and the Finley Community Center looking for failure to comply with the federal legislation adopted in 1992.

The list is contained in a document sent to the city by the U.S. Department of Justice within the past few weeks, said City Attorney Caroline Fowler.

She declined to specify the violations, saying they are subject to negotiations with the federal government and could be part of a lawsuit.

Since 2000, the federal government has reached settlements with 161 cities, counties and special districts across the nation to force compliance with the law’s goal to remove barriers that inhibit the ability of the disabled to access public services and buildings.

“It’s all based on access to public accommodations,” Fowler said of the law.

“It’s not that we have been singled out,” said Fowler, who said she does not know if the review comes from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which has been doing some investigations on its own, or based on a complaint filed by a private party.

But she did say it comes “at the worst possible time for us.”

The potential cost to correct some of the problems, which early estimates now peg at more than $3 million, comes just after the city underwent a $26 million budget-balancing crisis and faces the potential loss of millions if state legislators dip into city treasuries to offset their own budget problems.

Fowler, however, did outline two of the issues raised in the complaint.

The most problematic is the act’s requirement for sidewalk curb cuts at street intersections.

The city has installed those cuts in all new streets built since 1992 but did not include them for most of the early 1990s on existing streets that were being repaved with a new layer of asphalt.

“We included them when we built new streets, but not when we did overlay projects. We do now,” she said.

How many curb cuts the city might have to go back to install has not yet been determined, but Fowler said, “I’m sure it involves hundreds.”

“From a monetary standpoint, that is probably the most expensive issue we face,” she said.

Another issue is the slope of the concrete ramp at City Hall, which the complaint contends is slightly greater than the law allows and could require the city to build a new ramp for wheelchair accessibility.

Fowler said a less expensive alternative might be to move where “people pay their parking tickets or bus passes” at City Hall to the ground floor.

“That would obviously be cheaper than ripping out all the concrete and regrading it,” she said. “Those are the kinds of things we are looking at.”

Agent Orange linked to Parkinson's, heart disease

From The New York Times:

An expert panel reported on Friday that two more diseases may be linked to exposure to Agent Orange, a defoliant used by the American military during the Vietnam War.

People exposed to the chemical appear, at least tentatively, to be more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease and ischemic heart disease, according to the report. The report was written by a 14-member committee charged by the Institute of Medicine with determining whether certain medical conditions were caused by exposure to herbicides used to clear stretches of jungle.

The results, though not conclusive, are an important first step for veterans groups working to get the government to help pay for treatment of illnesses they believe have roots on the battlefield. Some other conditions linked to Agent Orange already qualify.

Claud Tillman, a 61-year-old veteran from Knoxville, Tenn., who lost his job repairing guns after he received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, said those benefits could help dig him out of tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Mr. Tillman has not worked since March 2007 and now lives on loans from relatives, including his son. “It sure has messed my life up,” said Mr. Tillman, who said he was sure he became ill after exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. “I don’t know how to explain it. It won’t be long till I’m living under a bridge. I am confident that that’s where it came from, but there’s no way to prove it.”

Since 1994 the Institute of Medicine committee has found 17 conditions associated with exposure to the chemical, 13 of which qualify veterans for service-connected disability benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In its latest report, the committee found “limited or suggestive evidence” linking the herbicide to Parkinson’s and ischemic heart disease. In the past, that has been enough evidence of a link to prompt benefits for some conditions but not for others.

The group Vietnam Veterans of America plans to write a letter to the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric K. Shinseki, asking for extended benefits, said Bernard Edelman, the organization’s deputy director for policy and government affairs.

The report notes that its conclusions about ischemic heart disease, a condition that restricts blood flow to the heart, causing irregular heartbeats and deterioration of the heart muscle, are still tentative because it is difficult to separate confounding risk factors like age, weight and the effects of smoking.

The link between Parkinson’s disease and Agent Orange is also uncertain because, while new studies have strengthened the connection between the condition and certain chemicals, there is still no data on veterans and the condition.

Comic-Con empowers fans with disabilities

From the LA Times:

If you look closely at some of the most popular comic book and collectible characters featured at Comic-Con International in San Diego, you notice some unexpected similarities. "X-Men's" Professor Charles Xavier uses a wheelchair. "Daredevil's" Matt Murdock is blind. "Iron Man's" Tony Stark doesn't have a healthy heart.

But it's not just the superheroes who are living with disabilities. All around the San Diego Convention Center are scores of others whose bodies are not fully functional, and many of them are navigating Comic-Con's cavernous exhibit halls in wheelchairs.

"You can be someone you are not in real life," said Virginia Baker, a 62-year-old fan of the World of Warcraft online video game and manga (Japanese comic books). Because of severe knee problems, the San Diego resident has used a wheelchair for more than seven years and was attending Comic-Con for the third time. "You can feel like you can be one of them -- you have legs! -- and you can become a warrior," she said of the appeal of fantasy gaming.

While the annual convention celebrating comics, movies, toys and games doesn't break down how many of its visitors have disabilities, it's obvious to any casual observer that the disabled -- most noticeably, people with mobility problems -- make up a significant portion of Comic-Con's 125,000 guests.

A wing of the 6,500-seat Hall H (where Hollywood movie previews are shown) is reserved for hundreds of fans using wheelchairs. The convention provides volunteers to wait in line for people who aren't able to stand for long periods of time, and a disabled services department provides personal assistance (it will store medicine in convention floor refrigerators, for one thing) and rental wheelchairs to dozens of visitors needing them.

The disabled are so much a part of the Comic-Con fabric that some of the convention's security officers use wheelchairs and Comic-Con staff have been heard yelling at other attendees using wheelchairs to slow down like everybody else trying to get to a presentation.

"I wish everybody had services like they do here," said 28-year-old Melissa Eckardt of San Diego (pictured), who uses a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy and is attending Comic-Con for the 15th time. "They know what to expect and what they need to do, and it only gets better year after year."

Yet accessibility only describes what it's like to move around the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con. More significant is why some people with disabilities (like some other minority groups) say they are drawn to comics, fantasy fiction and video games in the first place.

Several convention visitors and activists and authors in the disabled community say there can be a special bond between the disabled and fantasy figures, even if the make-believe characters don't have a disability.

"Each hero or villain in a comic is different in some way that makes them stand out in society. Their differences may be anything from the powers that Clark Kent tries to hide from the general public to the blindness that Matt Murdock embraces as a part of his life," said Megan Drummond, a journalist who suffered a brainstem stroke at age 7 and now writes about disabilities.

"Each one is trying to make the best of a sometimes difficult situation, which is something that people with disabilities do on a daily basis. Some people with disabilities may draw inspiration from that, some may feel that the situation of a certain characters mirrors their own life, and others may just find entertainment in it," Drummond said.

Andrew Imparato, the president and chief executive of the 100,000-member American Assn. of People With Disabilities, said the X-Men comic books and movie series are particularly popular with the disabled (and are among Imparato's personal favorites) because its narrative casts mutants as unwelcome, freakish outsiders who nonetheless embrace their distinguishing traits and become stronger through a community of similar exiles.

"There are a lot of disabled people who just want to be who they are and not have to change themselves to fit into society," said Imparato, who has bipolar disorder. "Every superhero movie I see, I see some sort of larger disability story. They are trying to fit in, and trying to tell people who they are -- what it means to be human.

"And a lot of people with disabilities like to have a fantasy life. If you're a disabled person -- on disability, living at home -- it can be pretty depressing and isolating."

As Comic-Con's doors opened Thursday morning, the area around the disabled services table was crowded with people in wheelchairs. Some were disabled parents with able-bodied children, some were disabled children with able-bodied parents. Some of the disabled came alone, some came in groups. But all said they were thrilled to be there.

"I've been reading comic books since I was a kid," said 59-year-old Rambo Littlefoot of Corona, who lost the use of his legs after a parachuting accident during the Vietnam War and was visiting Comic-Con for the fourth time. "We all fantasize about being a hero -- but what kind of hero do you want to be?" said Littlefoot, who said he is particularly fond of Flash, Thor, Hulk and the Avengers.

Melissa Eckardt, who was attending Comic-Con with her 25-year-old sister Janelle, who also has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, said she was particularly interested in the online virtual world game Second Life because she could become another person -- an avatar, as it is known in the gaming world.

"I am a huge, huge fan of it because you can become your own avatar," Eckardt said. "And what I did in Second Life is I built my own wheelchair for my avatar. I'm such a dork. Why would you need a wheelchair in an environment like that?"

Comic-Con's most noteworthy preview screening was for footage from filmmaker James Cameron's "Avatar," a futuristic sci-fi thriller in which a paralyzed soldier is able to take over the body of an able-bodied alien.

"There was a point where I did question it. 'Can I really do an action movie where the main character is confined to a wheelchair? Is that even possible?' I almost abandoned the concept, but I am so glad I didn't," Cameron said.

"I think I underestimated how resonant it would be. You see the guy in the wheelchair. You see him get his legs. And you see him walk in the world. And it's powerful," he said.

"When I was 14 years old, I didn't live in the little town of Chippewa, Canada. I lived in my imagination," Cameron added. "Today we are dealing with an evolution of human consciousness wherein we live these alternative lives. Today we have these relationships with people on the Internet that we seldom, if ever, meet. And yet they are complete intellectual or emotional relationships. So, we all have our avatars in one way or another."

Much-needed accessible transportation only serves a handful in San Diego

From the Voice of San Diego:

Her muscles are atrophied but her brain is fine, so 35-year-old LaTasha Jackson (pictured) has no problem enjoying a Padres game or a dinner event in San Diego with her friends who also have cerebral palsy.

It's getting there that's the challenge.

Jackson, who uses a wheelchair, has to ride three separate special equipped vans to reach San Diego from her apartment in Escondido. The trip back requires another series of transfers, and each one requires her to wait for a new van to pick her up.

All together, a round trip that might take about an hour for anyone in a private car could take her six hours in an endless round of getting into a van, traveling for a few miles, getting out of the van, waiting for another van to come pick her up and then starting the cycle again.

It's impossible to attend a night baseball game at Petco Park, and even day games are a nightmare of logistics.

Jackson seems to find joy in the mere act of living, and she smiles when asked about the hassles she endures to be able to travel. But it's clear she doesn't appreciate the delays.

"I don't like to wait a long time," she said after taking two vans to make it to a medical appointment in Poway.

In 2005, a group of local activists set up a government agency to make things easier for disabled people like Jackson to get around. They hoped to unite social service organizations and transportation agencies under one umbrella that would give people a single number to call and get a ride.

In simple terms, the vision was this: No fuss, no hassle, no duplication of services, no nightmare van-to-van-to-van trips.

Four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the little-known Full Access & Coordinated Transportation has only provided direct transportation assistance to a handful of people.

Hobbled by management problems, this blend of government agency and non-profit lacked a business plan and focused on raising money and spending it on management employees instead of helping people get around.

For example, the agency fired its first executive director and hired an interim leader -- who was also a board member -- at an annualized salary of $175,000, much higher than the position's normal pay.

"They didn't serve the public," said Penny Goforth, a La Mesa grant writer who helped the agency raise money until she became disillusioned by its management. "How many people didn’t get to doctor's appointments or stores because they were still planning on getting them transportation?"

Former Coronado City Councilman Phil Monroe, chairman of the agency's board, acknowledged a rocky few years. "We didn’t get off to a really good start. There's no question about that."

But he said the agency is moving ahead under a new executive director who hopes to begin helping disabled county residents get rides by the end of the year.

Others who advocate for transportation in the county are hopeful too. As they wait, though, more money is still being spent, provided courtesy of taxpayers -- both federal and local -- and philanthropists.

Every day, dozens of vans head out to pick up disabled people across the county. Some charge a fee, while others are free. They pick up those in wheelchairs, the infirm elderly, and the developmentally disabled.

Social services agencies and churches run some of the vans, but most are provided by public transit agencies.

The problem: There's no cross-talk between the various transportation providers.

In Oceanside, for example, the city might send vehicles to pick up seniors so they can go to a senior lunch program, said Alane Haynes, accessible services administrator with the North County Transit District. At the same time, the San Diego Center for the Blind may be picking up someone in the same area, as might the transit district's "paratransit" program, which makes about 300 trips a day to help the disabled.

"You have got three different vehicles going to the same vicinity," she said. "Wouldn't it be smarter to have one vehicle so that the two other vehicles can pick up people who don't have transportation (elsewhere)? That's the general idea behind coordination."

A network could also help people like Jackson take a single van to travel across the county; various jurisdictions could work together and figure out a way for her to avoid multiple transfers and simply rely on one provider. And it could bring services to areas that have limited or non-existent bus routes, like rural areas and wealthy suburbs.

If there's no bus route running through a neighborhood, vans operated by transit agencies won't go serve it. Private transportation for the disabled is an option, but an expensive one at $100 a ride, compared to $4 or $4.50 for a transit van.

Enter FACT, created by Haynes and other transportation advocates. In 2006, it began setting up its operations. Led by an appointed board that included local elected officials, including Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler, it hired an executive director and began applying for grant money.

Over the last three years, the agency has spent more than $500,000, much of it from federal and local grants -- including $105,017 over the past year from the San Diego Association of Governments.

The agency has created an online database, held numerous meetings with local officials and spent money to raise money by hiring grant writers.

But the agency has failed to meet its goals.

It has not created a transportation network in North County, where it was to launch a pilot project. It has not designed a software system to allow disabled people to easily call a central number and get assistance in finding a ride.

The number of people directly helped by FACT remains in the double digits, acknowledges its executive director, Max Calder.

The agency helped 34 developmentally disabled people find rides in late 2008 and early 2009. But the program was cancelled in February when the state reneged on a grant due to lack of funds.

Sri Lanka's government ministers fail to implement disability rights act there

From The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka:

The Supreme Court this week granted interim relief to a disabled rights activist who has been calling for the implementation of the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act which provides facilities for disabled persons in public places.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice Asoka de Silva, Justices S. Marsoof and I Immam granting interim relief to the petitioner, Dr. Ajith C.S. Perera (pictured), directed that no person on the grounds of his/her disability shall be discriminated or restricted in gaining access to new public buildings.

The Court also held that the owner concerned shall be equal partners and equally responsible for providing accessibility to disabled persons in buildings at public places. Dr. Perera who represented himself in the Supreme Court when a fundamental rights petition filed by him was taken up pleaded with the Court to direct the authorities to carry out a plan to make movement and other facilities available for disabled persons.

He had cited over 50 ministers in the Government for failing to implement the Disabilities Act. Dr Perera told Court that though there was an order issued few years back and which expires in October this year nothing constructive has been achieved for the improvement of the facilities made available for the disabled.

He said that there are about 16% of the population who are in this category and their needs to easy access to public buildings should be looked into. Senior State Counsel Ms. Demuni de Silva informed Court that the Government and the respective authorities concerned have taken measures to make alterations and improve the facilities for the disabled persons in most of the public places under Government control.

She said that with the present financial situation and difficulties faced it will take some time to implement all the requirements that the petitioner is asking for. But, Dr. Perera said that these are not correct because he being in the council for the disabled persons had visited many places like some of the post officers mentioned and these are not at all up to the requirement. The Court stated that the case was closed for the present.

Finding qualified employees for Texas institutions for intellectually disabled people could be difficult given the many existing unfilled positions

From The Dallas Morning News:

AUSTIN – A legal settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to prevent abuse and neglect inside Texas' state schools for the mentally disabled includes a clear directive: Hire nearly 1,100 new employees.

But that won't be easy. More than two years ago, lawmakers budgeted money to add 1,700 workers, and those positions aren't filled yet. With sky-high job turnover rates, low salaries and difficult work conditions, finding qualified employees – and keeping them – is a constant battle.

And when residents allege they've been mistreated, staff members must be reassigned, so it's even harder to keep a low resident-to-employee ratio.

"You'd think in the current economy, they would have no trouble filling these jobs, that there would've been an infusion of new employees," said Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. "But the fact of the matter is, even having more bodies doesn't necessarily improve the culture."

Cecilia Fedorov, a spokeswoman with the agency that oversees the state schools, denied that the 1,700 jobs have been hard to fill. About 300 remain open, but she said the agency is on schedule to have all of the jobs filled by the end of the summer.

"We do expect to have the same success in filling the 1,100 positions that have been added as part of the Department of Justice settlement agreement," she said.

Advocates say that definition of success doesn't take into account the turnover that has already occurred. So far, officials with the Department of Aging and Disability Services have had to hire more than 2,100 people to fill the initial 1,700 jobs – and they're still short 300 employees.

Nearly 450 employees hired to fill these new jobs have already quit, close to 150 of them within their first three months on the job. And 290 of these new employees have been fired, for reasons including lying on their job applications and failing to show up for work.

Fedorov said that the firings and departures among these employees aren't unusual and that the agency always sees a high turnover rate during employees' first six months on the job.

"This is very challenging work, work not everyone is cut out for," she said. "It's not unusual to have a lot of people leave within their six-month probationary period."

But state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, said that if the state schools are going to meet the 30-1 resident-to-staff ratio outlined in the five-year, $112 million settlement agreement, they must improve on keeping employees. The agreement was signed this spring after a four-year federal investigation into civil rights violations at Texas' 13 state schools for the disabled, and years of media reports on abuse and neglect in the facility.

"I'm going to work very closely with them ... to make sure they're adequately and appropriately meeting the terms," said Rose, who helped push the settlement agreement through the Legislature.

Even when jobs are filled, it doesn't mean staffing problems don't exist. During a nearly four-week period this spring, 155 employees at the San Angelo State School were accused of abuse or neglect and had to be temporarily reassigned. Eighty employees from state schools across the state left their own shifts to rotate in for these employees, costing the state $28,000 in hotel rooms, per diems and other travel expenses. The San Angelo facility has more than 700 employees.

State school officials say that investigations are ongoing over these allegations, and that only one person has resigned over them. They say there is nothing out of the ordinary about the reassignments – every time an employee is accused of abuse or neglect, he or she must be temporarily removed from the job. Such employees are reassigned to other work in which they have no direct contact with residents, and they receive their regular pay, Fedorov said.

About 6.5 percent of abuse and neglect allegations are confirmed, though many more investigations are inconclusive. In 2008, nearly 9,000 allegations of abuse, neglect or exploitation were lodged throughout the state school system.

Some state school employees say the staffing problems are far more serious than agency officials make them out to be.

Residents with histories of making false allegations can clear out an entire shift for two weeks by making a single abuse claim, they said. Workers who don't get along will call in abuse and neglect claims against one another. Sometimes, the employees say, workers who simply want a few days off will call in false accusations against themselves, knowing the investigation will come back unconfirmed.

State officials say they have little evidence of such instances, and they have to take all abuse allegations seriously, regardless of whom they come from.

One longtime employee, who spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said other workers are forced to work 12- and 16-hour shifts to pick up the slack, unless the agency shuttles in out-of-town workers who aren't familiar with the residents.

"Even when all of our positions are filled, which is rare, there are still not enough people to provide quality services," the employee said.

State officials say that the agency continues to operate aggressive recruiting campaigns, and that the toughest hires – nurses and medical professionals – are in short supply across the country. They hope the addition of 1,100 new employees will cut down on the need for staff overtime, as well as allegations of abuse and neglect.

"As in any situation, if you have one person, one set of eyes there, that's good. Two or three are even better," Fedorov said. "It could potentially reduce the number of abuse, neglect and exploitation incidents."

Advocates say that's unlikely, particularly when entry-level employees could be making higher salaries working at Wal-Mart. Though lawmakers allocated hundreds of millions of dollars this legislative session to improve care for people with disabilities, state school employees will not see pay raises. Entry-level employees make about $22,000 annually.

"We've seen this before, an infusion of money and employees," said Borel of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. "It hasn't ever been a long-term, substantiated solution."

Illinois cracks down on abuse of accessible parking spots by nondisabled people

From The News Tribune in LaSalle, Ill.:

Have you seen anyone driving a car with handicapped plates who’s obviously not handicapped?

Call the police: Cops now have the authority to strip violators of their permits on the spot.

Gov. Pat Quinn signed Public Act 96-0072 into law July 23. Among its provisions is that police now have the authority to confiscate parking plates and decals upon witnessing a violation. The new law, introduced in February by state Sen. Michael Bond (D-Grayslake) passed both houses unanimously.

“I think it’s absolutely wonderful,” said Donna Joerger, executive director at Illinois Valley Center for Independent Living. “That’s one of the most abused laws for people with disabilities. People so frequently park in handicapped spaces or misuse placards that handicapped parking spaces become almost useless.”

Joerger noted fines hadbeen increased but without much noticeable effect. She said she welcomed any legislation to step up enforcement and deter motorists from misusing handicapped parking privileges.

Law enforcement officers also were pleased to see the confiscation rule enacted, but weren’t sure it would result in many new citations or permit seizures.

La Salle police chief Rob Uranich said he was glad the Legislature gave police direct authority to confiscate misused permits, but said he and his officers already had sufficient grounds for seizure if they witnessed an apparent violation. Uranich explained that an officer could simply have taken a tag or decal for evidence after ticketing someone for a violation.

The problem Uranich foresees is that most drivers are not attending a car that is illegally parked, making it difficult for an observer to gauge whether the motorist is misusing an otherwise legal permit.

“But if an officer does come upon a person and they find they’re unlawfully using a permit,” Uranich said, “it’s good there’s a statute addressing it.”

Laura Hall, an assistant La Salle County state’s attorney assigned to the traffic division, acknowledged that instances of someone being charged for misusing a permit “have been few and far between.”

“I would hope (the new law) would act as a deterrent: to know that if you abuse your privilege you will lose that ability to have handicapped-accessible parking.

Chicago program has kept people with mental illnesses out of institutions for 50 years

From WLS-TV in Chicago:

Fifty years ago, an organization called Thresholds was created to help people with mental illness stay out of state institutions.

Today they serve 7,000 people in the Chicago area. It's the largest nonprofit provider of services for people with serious mental illness.

The success of the organization is based on the fact that community based services enables people with mental illness to live independently and in the community.

"I had like a nervous breakdown and I went to the hospital and the guy came in from Thresholds and he told me all the wonderful things that he can do for me," said Charles Thointon.

"I had a series of catastrophes. I was once married. I had a family, owned a home, owned cars, had a very good job and slowly they all started to disappeared. I became severely depressed and suicidal and that how I ended up," said Rokiah Lewis.
"Thresholds has helped me out tremendously."

"I was living in the streets basically homeless and basically had like a nervous breakdown," said Richard John Claytor. "They came to the hospital and they just picked me up and introduced me to Thresholds."

Charles, Rokiah and Richard are part of Thresholds Metro West Program.

"We help that person find themselves and find help and after they get help and become stabilized. We pick them up from the hospital and take them back to the community and the we work with them in the community for nine days and refer them to various resources until they can reestablished themselves in the community," said Helen Johnson, program director, Metro West.

Metro West is just one of many community based services provided by thresholds. Each program is set up to meet the needs of individuals with various mental illnesses. The goal is get individuals back into the community through programs like biking, recovery, theater, housing and employment.

Board member Ron Grais says Thresholds' employment program has had the greatest impact.

"There are very few agencies dealing with the folks that we deal with that are really committed to employment the way Thresholds. And the more we work with employment, the more important we find that it is," said Grais.

"Our urban meadows program where we have a flower shop in the Loop that involves are members and horticulture therapy working in the shop, I've seen some of the member there change from people who could not look at you in the eye could not get themselves to work everyday to vibrant, affective terrific people who are really now coming into their own because of that program," said Grais.

This year, they celebrate their 50th anniversary. It's a significant milestone for the organization to see how they have helped people with mental illness achieve better lives at the same time help society achieve a better mental health system.

"For an agency like Thresholds to be around for 50 years and to grow and change and evolve I think it extraordinary and there not that many agencies like it that have managed to do that and to survive," said Grais.

"Right now things are great. I'm feeling so much better about myself about my life. I'm wanting to live and wanting to fight and be out in the world again," said Lewis.

St. Kitts-Nevis man works to bring awareness to disability issues there

From SKNVibes:

Somewhere between seven to 10 percent of the world’s population go through their daily lives with a mental or physical disability, according to a 2000 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

This may not seem like a significant number, until one realises that this equates to as many as 600 million people, or double the population of the United States, that are limited from participating in society in a way that the remaining 90 percent would consider ‘normal’.

Of those 600 million persons, the WHO estimates that 80 percent live in developing nations such as St. Kitts-Nevis. Though St. Kitts-Nevis has never carried out a survey to accurately assess the number of persons living with disabilities in the Federation, the St. Kitts-Nevis Association for Persons living with Disibilities (SNAPD) estimates the figure to be somewhere between 4 000 and 5 000.

“It is something you have to live with to really understand, because it is hard to explain how a person who can’t speak feels when they are trying to get a point across to somebody who doesn’t know sign language. It’s kind of hard to explain how a person in a wheelchair would want to do everything that persons who can walk can, and then find out that he or she can’t,” SNAPD President Anthony Mills (pictured) explained in an interview with SKNVibes.

“Try sitting down and doing everything. Just try it for a day - try to wash, try to cook, try to clean, try to get in town and do business. Imagine you want to go into a store, but you can’t go in. Not because you don’t want to, but because you just can’t.

“I like to ask people to imagine you come in town one day and all of the sidewalks are blocked from you using them. How would you feel?” he added.

The challenges that persons living with disabilities face in St. Kitts-Nevis are as diverse as their personal afflictions.

Wheelchair-bound persons find that very few buildings or sidewalks have access ramps, which can often put them in danger of being hit by passing vehicles. Those with visual impairments would struggle to find Braille books in most schools. In the world of work, many employers in St. Kitts-Nevis would avoid hiring a person with a disability because of the minor accommodations that may have to be made to integrate him/her.

Mills said that this is a major issue facing the nation because of the large number of persons affected either directly or indirectly. He argues that nearly every person in the country would know at least one person living with a disability via family or friendship.

“Suppose it was you who was being shut out of society. It is hard enough being a person with a disability, and then add to that a society that does not seem to want you to be a part of it. We have a problem where we are facing closed doors, not open doors. The doors always seem to be closed to us and it is kind of frustrating. It makes life harder to live than it should be,” he said.

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