Call to Action Everyone who has any family members or friends who are disabled or elderly must attend this public hearing at Hofstra University March 23, 2011 at 3PM to protest the plans to cut 25 of Long Island’s bus routes and 20% of Able-Ride’s service cuts. Cuts unfairly target Long Island’s Disabled Riders… Read More »
Posts Categorized: Special Education Issues
Special Education Success at School for Disabled
The Henry Visconti School, a New York State supported special education school that prides itself on treating its students with dignity and respect, was recently praised in the New York Times for allowing severely disabled students to succeed in school through the use of technology and on-site medical care. According to the school website, the… Read More »
What's in a Name? Rosa's Law Passed
Federal statutes will no longer use the term “mental retardation” instead substituting the phrase “intellectual disability.” President Obama officially signed into law this October a bill that has spent months wending its way through Congress. Who is Rosa? Rosa is a now 9-year old Maryland girl with Down’s Syndrome. Her mother took issue with the… Read More »
Jennifer Aniston, Politically Incorrect?
In the latest controversy this year over the use of the word retard or retarded, Jennifer Aniston used the word “retard” self-deprecatingly on Regis and Kelly Live while describing how she plays dress-up for a living. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a retard as a mentally disabled person. From Wikipedia: Mental retardation (MR) is a… Read More »
Federal Help for Mentally Ill NY Youth in Custody
“Until now, the state did not have a single full-time psychiatrist on staff to treat youthful offenders.” This is the most startling sentence in this NYTimes article detailing the settlement which allows the federal government to oversee four of New York’s juvenile prisons. New York’s juvenile prisons are the place where troubled kids are locked… Read More »
Improving I.Q. for Autistic Toddlers
An exciting new study has shown that an intensive behavioral intervention raises the I.Q. level of toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study, reported by Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, compared 48 children diagnosed with ASD by placing the children in one of two controlled groups. Early Start… Read More »
Are Schools Prepared for an Increase in Autism-Related Special Needs?
The reported rate of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has significantly increased and is now expected to affect 1% of children ages 3 to 17, or approximately 1 in every 100 children, according to two recent major studies. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a study published in the journal Pediatrics indicate… Read More »
Reaching out to the Disability Community-An Important Government Resource
Recently, the federal government moved to the technological forefront with its launch of Disability.gov. This relaunched website fulfills its stated purpose of Connecting the Disability Community to Information and Opportunities. Disability.gov successfully uses social media tools to reach out to visitors and encourage interaction. There are online discussions and a user-friendly way to get answers… Read More »
Disabled Students Paddled More Often in School
According to a study just released, disabled students are subjected to corporal punishment at a far higher rate than other students. The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch collaborated on the report entitled “Impairing Education: Corporal Punishment of Students with Disabilities in US Public Schools.” According to the report, at least 41,972 disabled… Read More »