Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Helping Cyclists With Disabilities Reach Their Goals

Excerpt from League of American Bicyclists: (click for entire article)

The League’s Smart Cycling curriculum is a great tool for creating safe, confident cyclists. One of the greatest aspects of the program is the way it can be adapted to meet an educator’s needs. A great example is Programs to Educate All Cyclists (PEAC), a Michigan group helping individuals of all ages with cognitive, physical, and emotional disabilities reach their cycling goals.

John Waterman and his staff are serious about what they do. “We believe everyone can ride,” Waterman says. “That’s our motto and we take this stuff personally.” Waterman is a League Cycling Instructor, and all of the staff has graduated from Traffic Skills 101. More importantly, everyone has a degree in special education and a passion for working with cyclists with disabilities. PEAC has developed a number of programs to address the variety of goals set by their students.

Six Elements To Appear At When Obtaining A LTCi Quote

Excerpt from Senior Housing and Assisted Living: (click for entire article)

If you would like to get a long-term care insurance quote, it’s crucial that you simply know a few of the aspects involved. This certain post will provide you with six crucial factors to take into consideration. If you want an ltci quote, there is certainly so significantly data you will need to know about in order that you can make an informed selection. This information is based upon factors like what sort of benefits you need to get when utilizing your policy.

A long term care insurance coverage quote is contingent upon numerous aspects and following are some of the points to think about. Your age and what kind of benefits will cause your quote to vary.

Long-term care is contingent upon what rewards you would like to receive. Looking at regardless of whether you could get in-home solutions, nursing residence care or community based solutions will assist your quote vary.

Being Bullied Tied to Anxiety, Depression in Special-Needs Kids

Excerpt from U.S. News: (click for entire article)

Special-needs youth with chronic medical conditions or developmental disabilities are at risk for anxiety and depression if they're excluded, ignored or bullied by other young people, a new small study says.

It included 109 youngsters, ages 8 to 17, who were recruited during routine visits to a U.S. children's hospital. The patients and their parents completed questionnaires that screen for symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the youngsters also completed a questionnaire that asked them about bullying or exclusion by their peers.

The patients in the study had one or more conditions such as: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (39 percent); cystic fibrosis (22 percent); type 1 or 2 diabetes (19 percent); sickle cell disease (11 percent); obesity (11 percent); learning disability (11 percent); autism (9 percent); and short stature (6 percent).

Lack of state services for aging autistic makes adulthood like 'falling off a cliff'

Excerpt from Detroit Free Press: (click for entire article)

Nick Gammicchia knows exactly what he's going to do in the future.

"I'm going to Hollywood to help out movie producers, storyboard artists," Gammicchia said.

He already has drawn several storyboards and even sent a storyboard and screenplay to director Steven Spielberg.

"He's got big dreams," his mother, Carolyn Gammicchia, said with a smile.

A Theater Class Where All Are Able

Excerpt from The New York Times: (click for entire article)

“I’m a little scared,” confessed one of the children in the black-box theater at the Paper Mill Playhouse here on a recent Friday.

The admission, made by a 10-year-old latecomer in a Lion King T-shirt who occasionally buried his head in his mother’s lap, hardly fazed the drama teacher, Leslie Fanelli, 54, of New Providence.

“Just relax,” she said, momentarily pausing in her demonstration of improvisation, which involved a lot of arm-waving and singing. “Then maybe you’ll feel like joining in.”

Mick McCabe: Man appealing MHSAA age-limit rule for son with Down syndrome

Excerpt from Detroit Free Press: (click for entire article)

Dean Dompierre realizes that time is running out for his son, Eric.

Eric is a 19-year-old junior at Ishpeming High School in the Upper Peninsula, and his father is gradually breaking the news that he will likely be unable to play basketball or football in his senior year because of the Michigan High School Athletic Association's rule that prohibits students from participating in athletics if they turn 19 before Sept. 1.

Eric began school a year later than most students because he has Down syndrome. He loves playing basketball and football despite his size.

4 Common-Sense Proposals for Special Education Reform

Excerpt from The Atlantic: (click for entire article)

The Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (IDEA) is an example of a statute that has achieved its noble mission but now urgently needs to be fixed in order to address its unintended consequences.

Enacted in 1975, IDEA requires schools to provide students with certain disabilities with an entitlement to a "free appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment." Today it covers more than 6 million students. And while America can be proud that so many children have done well under IDEA, special education services now consume well over 20 percent of school budgets -- a staggering amount that constrains available resources and opportunities for the rest of the student population.

What's more, the law has become a regulatory and bureaucratic nightmare for schools. A 2002 presidential commission found that there are 814 federal monitoring requirements for states' and schools' adherence to IDEA and its accompanying regulations. All 13,000-plus public school districts in America -- some 100,000 urban, rural, suburban, large, small, rich, poor, charter, and regular schools, each with own needs and resources -- must navigate this morass. The system can be much improved in every aspect, including cost control and a focus on outcomes, not procedural compliance.

LC lecture touches on history of how people disabilities were treated in U.S.

Excerpt from WSLS: (click for entire article)

David Smith has spent years unraveling the disturbing history of how the United Stateshas treated people who fall outside the “arbitrary parameters” of normalcy.

One hundred years ago, for example, it was standard practice for family physicians to advise mothers to institutionalize infants born with disabilities, said Smith, founder of Lynchburg College’s special education program and a longtime advocate for people with disabilities. He spoke to a packed audience at Lynchburg College on Thursday night.

“Physicians told parents, ‘Don’t even take this baby home. Try again and put this baby ‘away,’” said Smith, explaining that “away” was an euphemism for institutionalization.

Our kids are troopers

Excerpt from Press-Citizen: (click for entire article)

Eight-year-old Tommy Giel has another word for what makes him unique.

“He calls it ‘awesome’ instead of ‘autism,’” said his mother, Marie. “He asks me, ‘Why do I have awesome?’ I say, ‘You have autism; you look at things differently; you act differently. It’s not wrong; it’s just different.’”

But being diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, as Tommy was when he was 4 years old, is not as unique as it once was. A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 88 children has been identified on the spectrum, a dramatic increase from the one-in-150 ratio reported in a 2007 study.

Baseball Stories - Down Syndrome

Excerpt from Bella Online: (click for entire article)

I have an athletic son who was born with Down syndrome. When he was a preschooler at his first baseball game I leaned over to whisper to him a simple explanation of the sport. Before I was halfway through the first comment he raised his palm to me and said, "One, two, three - you are OUT, mom."

All of a sudden a foul ball popped up and headed in our direction but well over our heads. As I leaned in to protect him he mistook my intent, raised his hand again and said very firmly: "Foul ball." He had watched hours of baseball on TV already; often playing with toys or multitasking in dozens of ways. I did not realize how much he was taking in.

It seemed as though he was a baseball fan before he was born. I know that he responded to crowd noises at the stadium while I was pregnant. At one game it felt as though he was having his own batting practice.