This tool helps you create personalized booklets to start conversations about health in your family and community

A key question, often left unstated during assistive technology consideration, is: Who can benefit from assistive technology? Federal law is silent on this issue assuming that the local IEP team is in the best position to decide if a student’s needs can be met through technology interventions or other accommodations.

Autism is just as common in adults as it is in children, a new British government study says. In recent years much attention has been focused on a perceived increase in autism rates among children, but in a study of more than 4,000 British households that country’s top health agency found that autism appeared in similar rates in adults and children.

A group of leading disability organizations is calling on Autism Speaks’ benefactors to end their support for the organization. The move comes in response to a video distributed by Autism Speaks which critics say depicts people with autism as less than human and burdens on society.

Apple (AAPL) is widely celebrated for making devices as easy to use as they are elegantly designed. What customers probably don't know is that some of these features aren't exactly new—they evolved from software Apple created to help disabled people use PCs. Among them: the new iPhone's voice control option, which allows users to speak to their handsets to prompt an action, such as calling Mom, or to get a spoken answer to such questions as "What song is playing?"

Ask most parents how far they'd go for their child, and the usual answer is "to the ends of the earth." It's a turn of phrase that Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff took literally. "The Horse Boy," directed by Mr. Isaacson and Michel Orion Scott, and opening in New York on Sept. 30, is travelogue of sorts. In 2004, Mr. Isaacson and Ms. Neff's 2½-year-old son Rowan was diagnosed with autism, a neurological disorder now diagnosed in one out of every 150 children according to the Centers for Disease Control. As Rowan grew, he got worse, as autistics generally do: In homemade footage, Rowan is shown becoming a volatile child whose only place of peace, his parents find, is on a horse.

Designs conceived for the handicapped, such as voice commands for PCs, often lead to products for the masses

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Tatyana Ray has more than 1,200 Facebook friends, sends 600 texts a month and participated in four student clubs during the year and a half she attended high school online, through a program affiliated with Stanford University. Although top public and private high schools abound in her affluent area of Palo Alto, the 17-year-old originally applied to the online school because she and her parents thought it looked both interesting and challenging. She enjoyed the academics but eventually found she was lonely. She missed the human connection of proms, football games and in-person, rather than online, gossip. The digital clubs for fashion, books and cooking involved Web cams and blogs and felt more like work than fun. Last winter, Ms. Ray left the online school and enrolled at a local community college for a semester.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to challenge educators, civil rights groups and others to put aside "tired arguments" about education reform to help him craft a sweeping reauthorization of federal education legislation by early 2010.

Families who have children with chronic conditions often need to find resources to assist them in caring for their child’s needs. You may need help finding transportation to a medical visit or accessing therapy services near your home. You may want to find parent organizations or information about child care or insurance coverage. The resource search option lets you look for resources by topic. Most resources are in Washington, Alaska, Montana or Idaho but there are a few national resources available for other states.  As you contact resources, make sure you are comfortable, know what you need, and find out about costs, their ability to work with you, within your budget or with your insurance plan.

Meet Logan. At 16 years old, Logan sustained a brain injury. Her desire for positive influences for young women with disabilities motivated her to create Logan Magazine with her mom, Laurie.

HELENA - State health officials today rolled out plans to sign up as many as 30,000 uninsured Montana children for publicly financed health coverage, under the voter-approved Healthy Montana Kids program. The program, overwhelmingly approved by Montana voters last year, expands the eligibility for two government programs already in existence: Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP). As of next Thursday, the programs will be open to any family earning up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $55,125 for a family of four.

KEEP IT SIMPLE: FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS, NOT PROBLEMS

why spend enormous amounts of time and resources trying to teach a child to write with a pencil, instead of simply providing him access to a computer? What are we not teaching the child (reading, writing, math, etc.) when so much time is spent on handwriting?

A goal of the AccessText Network is to provide college students access to resources on how to most effectively use alternative (electronic) textbooks and technology in the classroom as well as the study environment. Students are encouraged to join the AccessText mailing list to receive future announcements on student resources. The student section of our site is scheduled to launch summer 2009. The AccessText website will contain resources for students such as: How do I receive textbooks in alternative (electronic) formats? How do I use alternative (electronic) textbooks? What technology is needed to access electronic textbooks? What is the best electronic textbook format for me? Where can I get access to reading technology?

"All of the children that passed through our classrooms before this, we grieve," said Washington, who has been teaching deaf students for 23 years. "We sent them into the world without this." What the teacher from Richton Park is referring to is a groundbreaking method of teaching deaf and hard-of-hearing children how to read developed by Beverly Trezek, a special education professor at DePaul University. She combined visual phonics - where students can "see sounds" - and direct instruction - an SRA/McGraw-Hill scripted reading curriculum. "In the most simplistic sense, deaf children struggle with reading because they can't hear the sounds," Trezek said.

WASHINGTON --The Obama administration said Medicare will help fund state pilot projects that use primary-care doctors and teams of coordinators to manage patient care and reduce costs. Under the "medical home" model, pioneered in Vermont and several other states, physicians are paid more for coordinating care for their patients. The goal is to help patients – especially those with chronic illnesses – stay healthy enough to avoid hospital trips and expensive treatments, saving money in the long run.

Lexi Simmons would like you to know the following things about her: She is 16. She likes blue nail polish and boys and Starbucks coffee. She sent 4,096 text messages one month this summer. She gets good grades and hates baby-sitting. She is a normal girl.

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic Lexi Simmons, 16, jokes with her girlfriends during her birthday party at her Phoenix home.