Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

I think it odd that I am actually seriously celebrating and thinking about the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities act. As a man who has spent well over half of his life in a wheelchair with a permanent spinal cord injury I can say that my feelings about this landmark law have generally been negative. For instance, the law famously began as a civil rights act enforced by alleged victims filing lawsuits to force compliance in individual cases. I wonder if racial desegregation in education would have happened at all if Governor George Wallace had confronted a civil complaint instead of the National Guard on the steps of the University of Alabama back in 1963. The ADA was sadly bereft of enforcement teeth when it was passed 20 years ago. There have been phased upgrades that have produced some improvements in certain kinds of workplace accommodations and in particular, the IDEA law has bolstered equality for disabled students since its passage in 2004. In general, though, the ADA’s quiet, seemingly ad hoc effort to achieve a justice and equality that I found absolutely clear and imperative in my life has been frustrating. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in Education presented by Cheryl A. Theis (MA), Director of the Foster Youth with Disabilities in Transition (FYDT) and Clearinghouse and Education Advocate for the Parent Training Information Center Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund (DREDF)

The updated regulations that govern the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act will become effective in March 2011. Significant changes are included in these regulations and they are likely to have a significant (and positive) impact on those with learning disabilities (LD).   This podcast features a conversation with attorney Jo Anne Simon on how, specifically, these new rules will impact students with LD. Ms. Simon has over 30 years of experience working with the disability community and has helped create the field of post-secondary disability services by working at the grassroots and organizational level. Ms. Simon has worked for effective implementation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act since its enactment in 1990, and before that with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The regulations apply to the activities of more than 80,000 units of state and local government and more than seven million places of public accommodation, including stores, restaurants, shopping malls, libraries, museums, sporting arenas, movie theaters, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, hotels, jails and prisons, polling places, and emergency preparedness shelters.

The Impact on Students with LD and AD/HD The Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA) was passed by Congress in December 2008 and became effective January 1, 2009. This significant piece of legislation corrected what Congress considered to be a departure from the intent of the original ADA (passed in 1990) brought about by several narrow interpretations of the law through Supreme Court rulings. These rulings weakened the law and made it difficult for people with disabilities to receive the protection the law intended.The ADAAA also has a direct and substantial impact on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) -an important law that provides protections for school-age children with disabilities.   This Parent Advocacy Brief will help you understand the changes brought about by the ADAAA, how they apply to Section 504, and how these changes may impact children with disabilities, including learning disabilities, as well as other conditions such as Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), Aspergers Syndrome, diabetes, asthma, and life-threatening food allergies.

The success rate among the graduates of  America’s Special Education Programs has been studied and criticized for decades. In 2005, Dr. Frank Rusch of Pennsylvania State University and this writer addressed the issue related to the inability of young special education high school graduates to achieve success in employment, post-secondary education, adequate housing and community acquiescence. According to the study, Rusch and Pizzuro wrote: “Young adults with disabilities typically leave publicly funded educational institutions without a job, without being enrolled in postsecondary education, and without the security of knowing their roles in society. Fewer than 30 percent of high school leavers obtain jobs after departing mandated education and fewer than 10 percent enroll in postsecondary education. The past 25 years has witnessed continued poverty among young adults with disabilities, despite legislative reauthorizations aimed at improving educational opportunities (The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004) and employment access (The Americans with Disabilities Act).”

The Obama administration is coming out in support of a group of adults with developmental disabilities who say they’re being relegated to sheltered workshops even though they’re capable of working in the community. Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in late April in a class action lawsuit pitting some 2,300 people with developmental disabilities against the state of Oregon. In the suit filed in federal court in January, residents with disabilities alleged that the state is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide supported employment services, which allow people with disabilities to work in the community. Now, the Justice Department is weighing in saying that limiting people with disabilities to sheltered workshops is no different than segregating them in institutions.

When it comes to camps, kids with special needs have as many choices as other kids. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires all camps to make reasonable accommodations (such as the installation of wheelchair-accessible ramps) so that kids with special needs can attend. So, camps that previously couldn't host kids with special needs might now be on your list of possibilities.

This is the first in a three part series by Colleen M. Feldman, who contracted polio in 1941, just prior to her 13th birthday. In this post, she describes her childhood & teen years living with polio and her rehabilitation. The next two posts in the series will address her experiences later in life as a wife and mother with a disability raising three children, and eventually entering the workforce. Mrs. Feldman brings a unique perspective to Disability.Blog, having lived with a disability more than 50 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law.

Children with disabilities require and need recreation the same as other children.  Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“A.D.A.”), your child is entitled to attend any camp or activity that non-disabled children attend, with modifications, and with a few exceptions. It is highly critical that you discuss any needed modifications way before the first day of camp, so the entity has time to make the necessary preparations.  Enter into discussions taking a team approach, as you will be entrusting your child to this program all summer.  Be reasonable in your requests, and remember, just because your friend’s child is doing it, the program may not be a good fit for your child, even with modifications. This article will illustrate for you who is protected by the A.D.A, the modifications required under the law, and how to prevent discrimination.  

I have a confession to make. Until about a year ago, I had no idea what SAMHSA was. I had never even heard of it. My son has struggled with serious behavioral issues for more than nine years, which we now know are caused by his bipolar disorder. We were working with a small army of social workers, counselors, school personnel, psychiatrists, therapists—and I was well-versed in a small textbook of acronyms like IEP, SMI, ADHD, ODD, ADA, etc. But not one time was SAMHSA or any of its programs ever mentioned to me as a resource.

There’s still a long way to go in upholding disability rights 20 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the Justice Department’s top civil rights attorney. Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez told a group of disability rights attorneys Thursday that despite enforcement efforts, thousands of Americans remain unnecessarily institutionalized and accessibility is not as universal as it should be.

Sunday night, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, kicked off the President’s and White House’s celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act while delivering remarks to over 2,000 people from around the World at the VSA International Festival at the Kennedy Center.

Some key findings include the following: People with disabilities experience significant health disparities and barriers to health care, as compared with people who do not have disabilities. People with disabilities frequently lack either health insurance or coverage for necessary services, such as specialty care, long-term services, prescription medications, durable medical equipment, and assistive technologies. Most federally funded health disparities research does not recognize and include people with disabilities as a disparity population. The absence of professional training on disability competency issues for health care practitioners is one of the most significant barriers preventing people with disabilities from receiving appropriate and effective health care. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has had limited impact on how health care is delivered for people with disabilities. Significant architectural and programmatic accessibility barriers still remain, and health care providers continue to lack awareness about steps they are required to take to ensure that patients with disabilities have access to appropriate, culturally competent care.

Twenty years ago, a simple, standardized way to link together pages of text via the Internet was invented, and the World Wide Web was born.  Perhaps equally amazing as this innovation are all of the commercial communications advances that were either nascent or not even invented then  – email, Smartphones, GPS, and the rechargeable batteries that power laptops, cell phones, and cameras to name a few.   For as powerful as these inventions were in changing the lives of so many Americans, we recognize that technology has the power not just to entertain but to enhance our work-life experience and connect us to our families and communities. This is particularly true for the approximately 54 million Americans with disabilities.