GRATEFUL: The president thanked the city government and the volunteers for their effort throughout the Games and congratulated the nation’s first gold medal winner
STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA (Taiwan's national news agency, the Central News Agency)
For The Taipei Times
Thursday, Sep 17, 2009, Page 2
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday he had ordered the Sports Affairs Council (SAC) to study the feasibility of increasing the prize money awarded to medal-winning hearing-impaired athletes.
In the past, a gold medal winner in the Deaflympics received NT$750,000 (US$23,000). This year, however, the SAC raised the amount to NT$1.8 million, but Ma said he has asked the council to study how to raise the prize money to encourage hearing-impaired athletes to hone their skills.
“I also hope that all physically and mentally disabled people will get out of their homes to enjoy sunshine and exercise,” Ma said.Ma made the remarks while meeting local athletes who won medals in the 21st Summer Deaflympics and their coaches.
Two sign language interpreters helped with communication between the president and the athletes, and Ma used sign language to spell out the total number of medals Taiwanese athletes won in the games — 11 gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze.
Ma congratulated Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) for his city’s successful hosting of the quadrennial sports extravaganza.International Committee of Sports for the Deaf president Donalda Ammons, who spoke at the closing ceremony the previous day, said she was impressed by the event in many ways, including its venues, organization and efficiency, the setup of programs and the exceptional number of volunteers who were always smiling and ready to help.
“As president of the Republic of China and a former mayor of Taipei, I feel very proud of the achievements of the Taipei Deaflympics,” Ma said.He also expressed gratitude to the volunteers and staff members of the Sports Affairs Council and the Taipei City Government for their hard work and dedication during the 11-day event.“The breathtaking spectacle at the opening ceremony and the culinary climax at the closing ceremony were very creative and full of ingenuity,” Ma said.
Ma also expressed his admiration for Chen Yi-chun (陳怡君), a taekwondo athlete who secured Taiwan’s first gold at the Deaflympics on Sept. 6, for her perseverance in the pursuit of excellence despite her disability.
Ma said the SAC had appropriated funds in its budget for next year to establish 10 community public exercise stadiums that will offer advanced sports facilities for low user fees, including indoor warm-water swimming pools, aerobic dance centers, rock climbing equipment and archery ranges.
Copyright © 1999-2009 The Taipei Times. All rights
All About Developmental Disabilities (AADD) is Atlanta's preeminent resource on developmental disabilities, providing support services to families for more than 55 years. We are often the one place where people with developmental disabilities can go to achieve personal empowerment, family stability and community participation. AADD provides family support; public policy and advocacy; and community engagement.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Law Review Symposium-Register Now!
REGISTER NOW!
Georgia State University's 2009-2010
Law Review Symposium
The Long Road Home
Perspectives On Olmstead Ten Years Later
Friday, October 23, 2009
Atlanta, Georgia
The Georgia State University College of Law will hold a one-day symposium on Friday, October 23, 2009, to mark the tenth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's integration mandate in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), a landmark decision considered by some to be the disability law parallel to Brown v. Board of Education.
Georgia State University's 2009-2010
Law Review Symposium
The Long Road Home
Perspectives On Olmstead Ten Years Later
Friday, October 23, 2009
Atlanta, Georgia
The Georgia State University College of Law will hold a one-day symposium on Friday, October 23, 2009, to mark the tenth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's integration mandate in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), a landmark decision considered by some to be the disability law parallel to Brown v. Board of Education.
Attorneys and the surviving plaintiff from the Olmstead litigation, which originated in metropolitan Atlanta, will participate in the Symposium. United States District Court Judge Marvin Shoob, who ruled on the original summary judgment motion in Olmstead, will speak at the luncheon.
The Symposium is co-sponsored by the College of Law, the Center for Leadership in Disability, the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP and the Georgia Advocacy Office. Attorneys from Atlanta Legal Aid and Sutherland participated in the original Olmstead litigation.
The symposium will include discussions on the history, current status, and future of Olmstead initiatives, as well as Olmstead's potential implications for other areas of law.
Speakers will include:
Susan Stefan, Esq., Center for Public Representation
David Ferleger, Esq., Philadelphia, PA, Lead Counsel in Pennhurst v. Halderman State School
Steven J. Schwartz, Esq., Executive Director, Center for Public Representation
Ira A. Burnim, Esq., Legal Director, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Sidney D. Watson, Esq., Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law
Carrie Griffin Basas, Esq., Post-Graduate Research Fellow at Harvard Law School
Daniel Crimmins, Ph.D., Director, Jessica Howell, M.P.H., Assistant Director,
Sidney D. Watson, Esq., Professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law
Carrie Griffin Basas, Esq., Post-Graduate Research Fellow at Harvard Law School
Daniel Crimmins, Ph.D., Director, Jessica Howell, M.P.H., Assistant Director,
Stacey Ramirez, Georgia State University Center for Leadership in Disability
Charlie Bliss, Esq., Director of Advocacy, & Talley Wells, Esq., Atlanta Legal Aid Society
Kathy E. Sawyer, ASCW, Consultant and Former State Mental Health Commissioner Alabama)
Charlie Bliss, Esq., Director of Advocacy, & Talley Wells, Esq., Atlanta Legal Aid Society
Kathy E. Sawyer, ASCW, Consultant and Former State Mental Health Commissioner Alabama)
Register NOW!
Please visit http://law.gsu.edu/lawreview/index/symposium for more information. Cost of attendance is $30, which includes breakfast and lunch. Click on the registration tab to register. Continuing Legal Education credits also available. If you need any additional information at this time, please contact Laurice Rutledge (mlmr2112@gmail.com), Law Review Symposium Editor.
p r e s e n t ed b y
p r e s e n t ed b y
GSU Center for Leadership in Disability
and
Georgia Advocacy Office, Inc.
and
Georgia Advocacy Office, Inc.
Text-Based 911 Service In The Works
By Shaun Heasley
For Disability Scoop
September 14, 2009
Trials are underway in the United Kingdom of a text-based service, similar to 911, which is aimed at people with disabilities who are unable to phone in alerts.
Users of the new style service could send a text message indicating their emergency, what type of assistance they require and their location. The message would be received by a voice relay assistant who would call emergency services and then text back a response.
Currently, organizers are looking for people with disabilities in the United Kingdom to participate in the trial, which would involve texting in a real emergency.
If the trial is successful, a permanent service could be implemented in the United Kingdom in 2010, reports the BBC. To read more click here.
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
For Disability Scoop
September 14, 2009
Trials are underway in the United Kingdom of a text-based service, similar to 911, which is aimed at people with disabilities who are unable to phone in alerts.
Users of the new style service could send a text message indicating their emergency, what type of assistance they require and their location. The message would be received by a voice relay assistant who would call emergency services and then text back a response.
Currently, organizers are looking for people with disabilities in the United Kingdom to participate in the trial, which would involve texting in a real emergency.
If the trial is successful, a permanent service could be implemented in the United Kingdom in 2010, reports the BBC. To read more click here.
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
Making The Most Of Medicaid
By Michelle Diament
For Disability Scoop
September 9, 2009
Medicaid services are a lifeline for many people with developmental disabilities. But getting the government services can be an uphill battle and your odds of being successful often depend on what state you live in.
When United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) ranked the 50 states last month, Vermont came out on top for providing the highest quality Medicaid services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Find out where your state stands >>)
But behind that ranking are years of hard work, dedication and planning. So, what can you do to make sure that Vermont cedes its title to your state next year? Tarren Bragdon, an independent health and Medicaid policy researcher who crunched the numbers for UCP, tells you how.
Get out in the community
First and foremost, the single biggest predictor of the quality of Medicaid services a state provides to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is how many individuals are living in community-based settings, Bragdon says.
In the UCP ranking, this alone accounted for half of each state’s score. So, most of the states at the top of the list boast limited institutionalization, if any at all.
In Vermont, for example, all Medicaid funding goes toward community-based housing and everyone lives in homes with fewer than seven people.
“That’s phenomenal. That really sets them apart,” Bragdon says.
Yet even in states where total deinstitutionalization isn’t a reality yet, there are major possibilities for success. Take supported employment, for example. It encourages meaningful activity for people with disabilities and it’s also an easy sell to politicians since it’s low-cost and has a clear monetary return. (Oklahoma and Washington take the cake in that arena.)
Another key indicator of a successful state is the number of families receiving support. (New Mexico and New Hampshire are tops here.)
How do you get there?
Help end institutionalization in your state by demystifying life in an institution for the people in charge, Bragdon says. Take your legislators to an institution to see what it’s really like and to ask questions. Then, ask if they would want their loved one living in an institutional setting.
Also, look at your state’s structure. Most successful states focus on individuals. Michigan (ranked #6), for example, has a very strong county system, Bragdon says. So instead of every resident looking to a state department for assistance, there is a locally based office to turn to with staff who are more likely to know you and your unique needs.
Persistence Pays Off
The top performing states in 2009 represented some of the biggest and smallest states. They were rich and poor states with varying tax structures. And, while some states spent a lot on each individual with a developmental disability, some did not.
What made the different, however, was persistence.
“For those states that were most successful they were never states that got one great policy change and then went home,” Bragdon says. “They were always pushing.”
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/09/making-the-most-of-medicaid/4865/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
For Disability Scoop
September 9, 2009
Medicaid services are a lifeline for many people with developmental disabilities. But getting the government services can be an uphill battle and your odds of being successful often depend on what state you live in.
When United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) ranked the 50 states last month, Vermont came out on top for providing the highest quality Medicaid services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. (Find out where your state stands >>)
But behind that ranking are years of hard work, dedication and planning. So, what can you do to make sure that Vermont cedes its title to your state next year? Tarren Bragdon, an independent health and Medicaid policy researcher who crunched the numbers for UCP, tells you how.
Get out in the community
First and foremost, the single biggest predictor of the quality of Medicaid services a state provides to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is how many individuals are living in community-based settings, Bragdon says.
In the UCP ranking, this alone accounted for half of each state’s score. So, most of the states at the top of the list boast limited institutionalization, if any at all.
In Vermont, for example, all Medicaid funding goes toward community-based housing and everyone lives in homes with fewer than seven people.
“That’s phenomenal. That really sets them apart,” Bragdon says.
Yet even in states where total deinstitutionalization isn’t a reality yet, there are major possibilities for success. Take supported employment, for example. It encourages meaningful activity for people with disabilities and it’s also an easy sell to politicians since it’s low-cost and has a clear monetary return. (Oklahoma and Washington take the cake in that arena.)
Another key indicator of a successful state is the number of families receiving support. (New Mexico and New Hampshire are tops here.)
How do you get there?
Help end institutionalization in your state by demystifying life in an institution for the people in charge, Bragdon says. Take your legislators to an institution to see what it’s really like and to ask questions. Then, ask if they would want their loved one living in an institutional setting.
Also, look at your state’s structure. Most successful states focus on individuals. Michigan (ranked #6), for example, has a very strong county system, Bragdon says. So instead of every resident looking to a state department for assistance, there is a locally based office to turn to with staff who are more likely to know you and your unique needs.
Persistence Pays Off
The top performing states in 2009 represented some of the biggest and smallest states. They were rich and poor states with varying tax structures. And, while some states spent a lot on each individual with a developmental disability, some did not.
What made the different, however, was persistence.
“For those states that were most successful they were never states that got one great policy change and then went home,” Bragdon says. “They were always pushing.”
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/09/making-the-most-of-medicaid/4865/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
Program Makes College Degree A Reality For Students With Autism
By Michelle Diament
For Disability Scoop
September 14, 2009
College-level academics are attainable for many young adults with high functioning autism, but throw in the social skills necessary to navigate a campus environment and roadblocks begin to form. Now, a unique program is helping students break down such barriers.
Students at the College Internship Program, which is offered for those with autism spectrum disorders at four campuses across the country, live together in two-bedroom apartments as they take classes and learn independent living skills.
Each day begins with a class to review expectations for the day. Students also meet twice a week with their adviser to talk about their assignments, any tests or projects on the horizon and to discuss how to manage their time appropriately. The week is capped off with a Friday happy hour where students learn to mingle.
Students often start out taking just one or two courses, but many ultimately complete four-year college degrees. Along the way, they also learn the basics like cooking, cleaning and managing money, while gaining confidence.
All this doesn’t come cheap. The College Internship Program — which is offered in Massachusetts, Indiana, California and Florida — costs $30,000 to $40,000 a year, reports the Orlando Sentinel. To read more click here.
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/14/autism-college/4923/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
For Disability Scoop
September 14, 2009
College-level academics are attainable for many young adults with high functioning autism, but throw in the social skills necessary to navigate a campus environment and roadblocks begin to form. Now, a unique program is helping students break down such barriers.
Students at the College Internship Program, which is offered for those with autism spectrum disorders at four campuses across the country, live together in two-bedroom apartments as they take classes and learn independent living skills.
Each day begins with a class to review expectations for the day. Students also meet twice a week with their adviser to talk about their assignments, any tests or projects on the horizon and to discuss how to manage their time appropriately. The week is capped off with a Friday happy hour where students learn to mingle.
Students often start out taking just one or two courses, but many ultimately complete four-year college degrees. Along the way, they also learn the basics like cooking, cleaning and managing money, while gaining confidence.
All this doesn’t come cheap. The College Internship Program — which is offered in Massachusetts, Indiana, California and Florida — costs $30,000 to $40,000 a year, reports the Orlando Sentinel. To read more click here.
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/14/autism-college/4923/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Will Babies with Down Syndrome Slowly Disappear?
By Patricia Bauer
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (subscription required for full text), Dr. Brian Skotko reports that the number of babies born with Down syndrome has been steadily decreasing around the world as prenatal testing and selective termination have become more widespread.
Skotko reports that a trend toward later childbearing in the United States would have been expected to cause a 34 percent increase in the number of babies born with Down syndrome between 1989 and 2005 in the absence of prenatal testing. Instead, there were 15 percent fewer such babies born, a decrease of 49 percent between expected and observed rates.
With new and more sophisticated prenatal tests expected soon, Skotko called on the medical community to address the ethical questions raised by medical technologies that allow nations to decide what forms of human genetic variation are valued. He urged the medical community to:
– Develop guidelines for delivering a diagnosis of Down syndrome;
– Assemble current and accurate information on Down syndrome, in collaboration with parent support organizations, to be distributed to prospective parents;
– Offer comprehensive training to professionals on how to deliver a non-directive prenatal diagnosis; and
– Develop curriculum to give medical, nursing and genetic counseling students a richer understanding of Down syndrome.
An excerpt:
… In its support for Down syndrome prenatal screening, has the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology endorsed a climate in which disability discrimination could more easily flourish?
… The age is swiftly coming where not all possible technologic advances may bring welcomed change. Parents who have children with Down syndrome have already found much richness in life with an extra chromosome. Now is the time for the rest of us to discuss the ethics of our genetic futures.
Dr. Brian Skotko is a clinical genetics fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston. ADC is the journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Press release from Children’s Hospital Boston here.
Full article available for purchase here.
http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2009/
Copyright 2007 by Patricia E Bauer
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (subscription required for full text), Dr. Brian Skotko reports that the number of babies born with Down syndrome has been steadily decreasing around the world as prenatal testing and selective termination have become more widespread.
Skotko reports that a trend toward later childbearing in the United States would have been expected to cause a 34 percent increase in the number of babies born with Down syndrome between 1989 and 2005 in the absence of prenatal testing. Instead, there were 15 percent fewer such babies born, a decrease of 49 percent between expected and observed rates.
With new and more sophisticated prenatal tests expected soon, Skotko called on the medical community to address the ethical questions raised by medical technologies that allow nations to decide what forms of human genetic variation are valued. He urged the medical community to:
– Develop guidelines for delivering a diagnosis of Down syndrome;
– Assemble current and accurate information on Down syndrome, in collaboration with parent support organizations, to be distributed to prospective parents;
– Offer comprehensive training to professionals on how to deliver a non-directive prenatal diagnosis; and
– Develop curriculum to give medical, nursing and genetic counseling students a richer understanding of Down syndrome.
An excerpt:
… In its support for Down syndrome prenatal screening, has the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology endorsed a climate in which disability discrimination could more easily flourish?
… The age is swiftly coming where not all possible technologic advances may bring welcomed change. Parents who have children with Down syndrome have already found much richness in life with an extra chromosome. Now is the time for the rest of us to discuss the ethics of our genetic futures.
Dr. Brian Skotko is a clinical genetics fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston. ADC is the journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Press release from Children’s Hospital Boston here.
Full article available for purchase here.
http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2009/
Copyright 2007 by Patricia E Bauer
The Problems with Special Ed
Perverse incentives cause schools to misuse special ed for remedial education.
By Jay P. Greene
National Review Online (NRO)
September 14, 2009 4:00 AM
Officially reported disability rates in public schools are entirely unreliable and are almost certainly inflated indicators of how many students are actually disabled. Eventually, school and government officials are going to have to acknowledge that our current procedures for identifying students as disabled are fundamentally flawed and commit themselves to improving these procedures.
One of the reasons we know that reported disability rates lack credibility is that they vary dramatically from state to state. In New Jersey, for example, 18 percent of all students are classified as disabled, but in California the rate is only 10.5 percent. There is no medical reason why students in New Jersey should be 71 percent more likely to be placed into special education than students in California.
Consider also how rapidly special education has grown over the last three decades. Today almost one in seven students is classified as having a disability. That’s 63 percent more than when federal programs for special education began in 1976. Do we really believe that our children’s medical well-being has deteriorated so severely over the last three decades?
What is especially odd is that almost all the growth in special education over the last three decades has occurred in just two of the 13 federal categories for disabilities: specific learning disability (SLD, which includes dyslexia) and “other health” (which includes attention-deficit disorders — ADD). The size of the remaining eleven federal categories combined has remained relatively flat, while SLD has tripled and “other health” has quadrupled. Those two categories account for 86 percent of the increase in special-education enrollments. If there really were a medical plague afflicting the nation’s children, we would expect to see an increase in more objectively diagnosed categories, like mental retardation, blindness, and deafness, and not just in the relatively mild and ambiguous categories of SLD and “other health.”
If special-education rates can’t be explained by medical factors, what causes them to vary so dramatically from state to state and across time? Part of the explanation could be benign. Perhaps over time, and particularly in some states, awareness and acceptance of disabilities has improved. To the extent that has been the case, some students are currently being counted as disabled who were wrongly excluded from special ed in the past. We know that there are in fact some students who continue to be wrongly excluded from special education.
But much of the increase in special-education rates has been caused by less benign forces. Public schools have been using special education as a remedial-education program. Students who are struggling academically — but have no true disability — are being wrongly placed in special education. The students may be struggling because they have been taught poorly or because they have a difficult home life, but these are not disabilities. There are probably hundreds of thousands of these students wrongly identified as disabled who really need only remedial education.
Schools have discovered that they can get extra funding from state and federal governments for small-group instruction to help lagging students catch up if they say that the students are struggling because of a processing problem in their brains. School officials who admit that the students are lagging because of poor previous instruction or a difficult home life, by contrast, are left to pay the costs of small-group instruction entirely out of their own budget.
What’s so bad about using special education as a remedial program if that is the only way to get resources to help kids who are behind? First, it is an incredibly inefficient way to provide remediation. Classifying students as disabled imposes all sorts of administrative costs on schools to keep up with the paperwork and procedures required by the laws mandating special ed. These costs are not so great that they deter schools from incorrectly identifying students as disabled, but in aggregate they impose a considerable, unnecessary burden on taxpayers.
Second, wrongly labeling lagging students as disabled imposes on those students an academic stigma and, often, lowered academic expectations.
Third, miscategorizing those students prevents schools and the public from identifying their own problems and trying to correct them. If we blame processing problems in children’s brains for academic struggles rather than poor prior instruction or issues outside of school, we’ll fail to take the necessary corrective steps.
And fourth, let’s not forget that reducing over-identification would allow special-education resources to be focused on students who are truly disabled and in need of extra assistance, including students truly suffering from SLD and ADD.
Schools are not reliable at distinguishing between true, medical disabilities and academic difficulties caused by poor instruction or difficult home lives. We need to develop procedures for identifying and auditing disability classifications independent of the school systems, which suffer from obvious conflicts of interest. If reforms are not instituted, it won’t be long until we live in a Lake Woebegone where all children are above average, and the ones who aren’t are labeled “disabled.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2QwNDZhYjhhMDY2MjZiYmI2MzZmZmUyY2M4NGJjZDI=
— Jay P. Greene is endowed professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His new report with Marcus Winters, "How Special-Ed Vouchers Keep Kids From Being Mislabeled as Disabled,” can be read online here.
By Jay P. Greene
National Review Online (NRO)
September 14, 2009 4:00 AM
Officially reported disability rates in public schools are entirely unreliable and are almost certainly inflated indicators of how many students are actually disabled. Eventually, school and government officials are going to have to acknowledge that our current procedures for identifying students as disabled are fundamentally flawed and commit themselves to improving these procedures.
One of the reasons we know that reported disability rates lack credibility is that they vary dramatically from state to state. In New Jersey, for example, 18 percent of all students are classified as disabled, but in California the rate is only 10.5 percent. There is no medical reason why students in New Jersey should be 71 percent more likely to be placed into special education than students in California.
Consider also how rapidly special education has grown over the last three decades. Today almost one in seven students is classified as having a disability. That’s 63 percent more than when federal programs for special education began in 1976. Do we really believe that our children’s medical well-being has deteriorated so severely over the last three decades?
What is especially odd is that almost all the growth in special education over the last three decades has occurred in just two of the 13 federal categories for disabilities: specific learning disability (SLD, which includes dyslexia) and “other health” (which includes attention-deficit disorders — ADD). The size of the remaining eleven federal categories combined has remained relatively flat, while SLD has tripled and “other health” has quadrupled. Those two categories account for 86 percent of the increase in special-education enrollments. If there really were a medical plague afflicting the nation’s children, we would expect to see an increase in more objectively diagnosed categories, like mental retardation, blindness, and deafness, and not just in the relatively mild and ambiguous categories of SLD and “other health.”
If special-education rates can’t be explained by medical factors, what causes them to vary so dramatically from state to state and across time? Part of the explanation could be benign. Perhaps over time, and particularly in some states, awareness and acceptance of disabilities has improved. To the extent that has been the case, some students are currently being counted as disabled who were wrongly excluded from special ed in the past. We know that there are in fact some students who continue to be wrongly excluded from special education.
But much of the increase in special-education rates has been caused by less benign forces. Public schools have been using special education as a remedial-education program. Students who are struggling academically — but have no true disability — are being wrongly placed in special education. The students may be struggling because they have been taught poorly or because they have a difficult home life, but these are not disabilities. There are probably hundreds of thousands of these students wrongly identified as disabled who really need only remedial education.
Schools have discovered that they can get extra funding from state and federal governments for small-group instruction to help lagging students catch up if they say that the students are struggling because of a processing problem in their brains. School officials who admit that the students are lagging because of poor previous instruction or a difficult home life, by contrast, are left to pay the costs of small-group instruction entirely out of their own budget.
What’s so bad about using special education as a remedial program if that is the only way to get resources to help kids who are behind? First, it is an incredibly inefficient way to provide remediation. Classifying students as disabled imposes all sorts of administrative costs on schools to keep up with the paperwork and procedures required by the laws mandating special ed. These costs are not so great that they deter schools from incorrectly identifying students as disabled, but in aggregate they impose a considerable, unnecessary burden on taxpayers.
Second, wrongly labeling lagging students as disabled imposes on those students an academic stigma and, often, lowered academic expectations.
Third, miscategorizing those students prevents schools and the public from identifying their own problems and trying to correct them. If we blame processing problems in children’s brains for academic struggles rather than poor prior instruction or issues outside of school, we’ll fail to take the necessary corrective steps.
And fourth, let’s not forget that reducing over-identification would allow special-education resources to be focused on students who are truly disabled and in need of extra assistance, including students truly suffering from SLD and ADD.
Schools are not reliable at distinguishing between true, medical disabilities and academic difficulties caused by poor instruction or difficult home lives. We need to develop procedures for identifying and auditing disability classifications independent of the school systems, which suffer from obvious conflicts of interest. If reforms are not instituted, it won’t be long until we live in a Lake Woebegone where all children are above average, and the ones who aren’t are labeled “disabled.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2QwNDZhYjhhMDY2MjZiYmI2MzZmZmUyY2M4NGJjZDI=
— Jay P. Greene is endowed professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His new report with Marcus Winters, "How Special-Ed Vouchers Keep Kids From Being Mislabeled as Disabled,” can be read online here.
'Mental Retardation’ Officially Removed from MRDD Name
By Jim Sullivan
For the Iron Tribune, in Ironton,OH
Published Thursday, September 3, 2009
Starting on Aug. 20, the Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities removed the term “mental retardation” from its official title following passage of Senate Bill 79, which subsequently changed the name of the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities (MRDD).
The bill was signed by Gov. Ted Strickland on July 7 and becomes law 90 days after that. The bill was introduced by State Sen. Jimmy Stewart, (R-Albany).
Ohio now joins 43 other states that have dropped the medical condition phrase “mental retardation” from their official names. Officials throughout the state were initially committed to keeping the term “mental retardation” around as not to confuse voters by having an understandable name on the ballot when renewal and replacement levies appeared.
Ohio is one of only a few states in which individual county developmental disability boards raise money through property taxes to pay for and provide services for their clients.
With the new name, workers at the county agency say the change has been a smooth one so far.
“It has not been a big transition for us,” explained Ashleigh Williams, Public Relations/Personnel Director for the Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities. “We have had to change our letterhead, email addresses and our signs.”
“So far we have positive feedback,” Williams added. “From the people we’ve talked to the name change has been very receptive.”
The change follows a cycle in how to properly address those with developmental disabilities. Forty years ago, mental retardation was substituted for words like “feeble-minded” and “imbeciles.” Now that has been replaced.
“There was always a stigma attached to having mental retardation in the name. Hopefully changing the name will remove that stigma and allow people to see the abilities of the individuals in these programs,” said Donna Fugett, whose daughter has been an employee at Tri-State Industries for 11 years.
“I think it is a positive change. Developmental disabilities encompass the broader range of people that we serve, while taking away any negative attention,” said Veronica Cameron, a preschool instructor at the Lawrence County Early Childhood Center in South Point.
The Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities serves more than 500 children and adults throughout the county.
Services are provided at the Open Door Schools in Ironton, Tri-State Industries in Coal Grove and the Early Childhood Center in South Point.
www.irontontribune.com
http://www.thearc.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1910
For the Iron Tribune, in Ironton,OH
Published Thursday, September 3, 2009
Starting on Aug. 20, the Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities removed the term “mental retardation” from its official title following passage of Senate Bill 79, which subsequently changed the name of the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities (MRDD).
The bill was signed by Gov. Ted Strickland on July 7 and becomes law 90 days after that. The bill was introduced by State Sen. Jimmy Stewart, (R-Albany).
Ohio now joins 43 other states that have dropped the medical condition phrase “mental retardation” from their official names. Officials throughout the state were initially committed to keeping the term “mental retardation” around as not to confuse voters by having an understandable name on the ballot when renewal and replacement levies appeared.
Ohio is one of only a few states in which individual county developmental disability boards raise money through property taxes to pay for and provide services for their clients.
With the new name, workers at the county agency say the change has been a smooth one so far.
“It has not been a big transition for us,” explained Ashleigh Williams, Public Relations/Personnel Director for the Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities. “We have had to change our letterhead, email addresses and our signs.”
“So far we have positive feedback,” Williams added. “From the people we’ve talked to the name change has been very receptive.”
The change follows a cycle in how to properly address those with developmental disabilities. Forty years ago, mental retardation was substituted for words like “feeble-minded” and “imbeciles.” Now that has been replaced.
“There was always a stigma attached to having mental retardation in the name. Hopefully changing the name will remove that stigma and allow people to see the abilities of the individuals in these programs,” said Donna Fugett, whose daughter has been an employee at Tri-State Industries for 11 years.
“I think it is a positive change. Developmental disabilities encompass the broader range of people that we serve, while taking away any negative attention,” said Veronica Cameron, a preschool instructor at the Lawrence County Early Childhood Center in South Point.
The Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities serves more than 500 children and adults throughout the county.
Services are provided at the Open Door Schools in Ironton, Tri-State Industries in Coal Grove and the Early Childhood Center in South Point.
www.irontontribune.com
http://www.thearc.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1910
Monday, September 14, 2009
Immigration Protections Sought For People With Mental Disabilities
By Shaun Heasley
For Disability Scoop
September 11, 2009
Xiu Ping Jiang has a history of mental illness and suicide attempts, but when she was picked up by immigration agents in Florida in 2007, the woman who fled China after being forcibly sterilized, was locked up and provided no assistance despite her obvious need for medical and legal help.
Jiang’s story is not uncommon, advocates say, among people with mental illness or low competency who get caught up in the immigration system. Often such individuals are left to languish in jails, like Jiang did, awaiting deportation with little understanding of what’s going on or why, all the while at risk of further deterioration of their mental state.
For her part, Jiang was only able to leave the jail after her sisters were able to secure a lawyer to represent her.
Now, a group of advocates, attorneys and mental health experts are asking Attorney General Eric Holder to afford individuals with mental illness and other disabilities protections in the immigration system similar to those they typically receive in other courts.
In a letter, the group of 77 said they would like to see a lawyer appointed for anyone with a mental disability and a guardian ad litem provided for anyone found to be mentally incompetent, reports The New York Times. To read more click here.
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/11/immigration/4902/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
For Disability Scoop
September 11, 2009
Xiu Ping Jiang has a history of mental illness and suicide attempts, but when she was picked up by immigration agents in Florida in 2007, the woman who fled China after being forcibly sterilized, was locked up and provided no assistance despite her obvious need for medical and legal help.
Jiang’s story is not uncommon, advocates say, among people with mental illness or low competency who get caught up in the immigration system. Often such individuals are left to languish in jails, like Jiang did, awaiting deportation with little understanding of what’s going on or why, all the while at risk of further deterioration of their mental state.
For her part, Jiang was only able to leave the jail after her sisters were able to secure a lawyer to represent her.
Now, a group of advocates, attorneys and mental health experts are asking Attorney General Eric Holder to afford individuals with mental illness and other disabilities protections in the immigration system similar to those they typically receive in other courts.
In a letter, the group of 77 said they would like to see a lawyer appointed for anyone with a mental disability and a guardian ad litem provided for anyone found to be mentally incompetent, reports The New York Times. To read more click here.
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/09/11/immigration/4902/
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
U.S. Open Provides Work, Opportunities For People With Disabilities
By Shaun Heasley
September 11, 2009
The action may be on the courts, but for a group of adults with developmental disabilities, the U.S. Open is far more than a spectator opportunity. It’s a chance to let
their work skills shine.
More than 50 people with developmental disabilities are hard at work making sure that tables are clean and that napkins and other essentials are in good supply at the food village of the Flushing, N.Y. complex where the U.S. Open is held. The grand slam tournament ends its two week run this Sunday.
For the past eleven years, graduates of a New York City employment training program for people with disabilities have capped off their summer at the U.S. Open, providing an opportunity for them to display their work skills in a big way and even meet a few celebrities in the process, reports the Queens Chronicle. To read more click here.
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
September 11, 2009
The action may be on the courts, but for a group of adults with developmental disabilities, the U.S. Open is far more than a spectator opportunity. It’s a chance to let
their work skills shine.
More than 50 people with developmental disabilities are hard at work making sure that tables are clean and that napkins and other essentials are in good supply at the food village of the Flushing, N.Y. complex where the U.S. Open is held. The grand slam tournament ends its two week run this Sunday.
For the past eleven years, graduates of a New York City employment training program for people with disabilities have capped off their summer at the U.S. Open, providing an opportunity for them to display their work skills in a big way and even meet a few celebrities in the process, reports the Queens Chronicle. To read more click here.
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved. For reprints and permissions click here.
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