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

Adults with disabilities at greater risk for violence

Excerpt from: Healio (click for full article)

 

Researchers reported that adults with mental illness were at three times the risk for being victims of violence, and those with physical disability at a twofold risk vs. healthy adult. Moreover, those with any disability were more likely to experience emotional difficulties as a result of their victimization.

According to WHO and the World Bank, violence is the leading cause of morbidity among adults with disabilities, who comprise approximately 15% of the global population.

Hind Khalifeh, a PhD candidate at the University College London, and colleagues analyzed data from the 2009-2010 British Crime Survey, which includes information on 44,398 adults living in residential households in England and Wales. The researchers performed logistic regression analyses to estimate the relative odds of being a victim of past-year physical and sexual violence in those with both mental and physical disabilities vs. healthy adults.

Piano Pedagogy Tips for Students with Sight/Developmental Disabilities

Excerpt from: The Musical Home (click for full article)

 

I have a few students now that require much more daily lesson planning than most other students. They have various disabilities ranging from mild learning disabilities to more severe mental, physical, or visual disabilities. These are in some ways, my favorite piano/voice lessons to teach because these students work hard and really want to be here. The following is a helpful page that I came across while searching for ideas in working with the visually impaired. It is written by a professor of Music in South Carolina that has some very good thoughts on ways to teach most efficiently for students with special needs. Most of these I have intuitively tried to implement, but some I have not thought of on my own. If you are a teacher, I hope that you can find these ideas helpful and if you are a parent looking for a teacher, I hope that you can use some of these thoughts as guidelines in what to look for in a piano teacher. Enjoy!

British Paralympian Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson believes 2012 was the year Paralympics 'came of age'

Excerpt from: Media dis&dat (click for full article)

 

It is hard to pick just a few favourite moments. The atmosphere on Thriller Thursday when Jonnie Peacock silenced 82,000 people by merely holding his finger to his lips amazed even the most hard bitten supporters. One commentator said he had never heard that support for anyone, not even Usain Bolt. The 100m then turned into one of the best races of the Games, not just the most hyped.

 Leaving the Olympic Park every night, so many people came up and wanted to share the joy they had experienced. There were the families who said they were worried about taking their children to goalball because they feared that they couldn’t keep quiet for that long, and they voiced their surprise when they did. And there were disabled children saying they now had a real choice of people they wanted to emulate.

The overriding feeling in and around the Games was that the Paralympic movement had developed – and is continuing to develop. Sometimes the signs were quite subtle: Seb Coe talking about the Paralympics, while the Olympics were still on, for example. Being able to say the Olympic and Paralympic Games instead of having to divide them by having two Games in the same sentence was another. And then, less subtle but genuinely groundbreaking, the sight of three Paralympians making the 12-strong shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award.

Smart Money: Looking ahead for physically disabled daughter’s long-term care

Excerpt from: Herald and News (click for full article)

 

Dear R.P.:You have been given a heavy cross to bear, and I sympathize.

I think the best place to start is to contact organizations dedicated to the type of physical problems with which your daughter was born. Often, money can be paid to them for a specific period or until you are no longer in the picture, and then they will take care of her in those later years. There are many organizations out there that can help you; it’s just a matter of finding the right one that can direct you. It would be a wonderful place to begin. I sincerely wish you and your husband well.

Amputee a driving force in getting people with disabilities moving

Excerpt from: Chicago Tribune (click for full article)

 

Army veteran Melissa Stockwell has one strong, healthy leg. The other is a scarred, 6-inch stump that she has proudly nicknamed "Little Leg."

The Bucktown woman throws birthday parties for this shortened limb, always dresses it in her favorite colors — red, white and blue — and has trouble imagining going through life any other way. "I've done more with one leg than I ever could have with two," she often says.

The first female soldier to lose a limb in Iraq, Stockwell, 32, has managed to turn a traumatic above-the-knee amputation into an uplifting experience, one that motivates people of all abilities. Since the injury she has shaken hands with presidents, won three consecutive paratriathlon world championships, run marathons, skied down mountains and raced 267 miles across Alaska in the longest wheelchair and handcycle race in the world.

Earlier this month she declared on her blog, "I'm going to be an Ironman," and signed up for Ironman Arizona, a punishing 2.4-mile swim and 112-mile bike ride, followed by a 26.2-mile run.

But Stockwell's physical feats only partly explain why a company like Trek now touts her as one of its "great athletes," calling her an inspirational role model.

Disabled daughter dies just hours after state takes her from mom

Excerpt from: Tampa Bay Times (click for full article)

 

"Not to seem insensitive; I understand the mother is quite frustrated and I understand that she's grieving," Attila said, "but the information that she's providing to the court is moot at this point in time."

Despite Attila's protestations, Freyre had the last word.

"I had her for 14 years — cared (for) and loved her," Freyre said. "And you have her … in prison, in the hospital, without going out in the sun, without being with other people, in prison.

"Then, in (12) hours, you took her down to Miami and she died," Freyre added. "And I want the truth of this to come out. I want justice."

Marie's body remained in storage for nine months while the medical examiner's office completed its autopsy, and Freyre held a memorial with no body.

In the end, Marie's body was cremated in Tampa. Her ashes then were sent to Puerto Rico for a private family funeral.

Unraveling myths of dating someone with a disability

Excerpt from: The Calgary Journal (click for full article)

 

Maria Barile, an advocate for women with disabilities, lives with what she calls "three impairments", and knows about the many misconceptions involving people with disabilities and their romantic/sexual relationships.

"When I got to university, the reverse was happening," she remembers. "There were courses taught at school about sexuality, but there was nothing about people with disabilities."

She says she became an activist because of the fact that her own experience was never reflected back in her studies. While academics focused on women's issues, sexuality issues, or disability issues, the three were never linked together.

Helping children learn new skills and gain independence

Excerpt from: Enabled Kids (click for full articles)

 

Many parents stand by in frustration wondering how they can help a challenged child develop new skills. First and foremost, we need to rid our minds of the word disabled. Perceive your child instead as challenged with the capability to be enabled versus disabled. The biggest gift we give our children is to step back and allow them to struggle a bit. Through struggles a child learns perseverance. Perseverance will fuel a child with the energy to work hard at developing skills and build self esteem. Our natural inclination as a parent is to swoop in and rescue a child when they struggle, cry, or attempt to give up because a learning experience has challenged them. As the parent of a young adult with learning disabilities I have experienced this feeling many times.

Parents need to trust their own instincts in encouraging children to thrive. Believe in yourself. Please know I understand and would love to answer questions. I leave you with this thought. The baby bird doesn’t know it can fly until the mother bird pushes it out of the nest. The mother bird instinctively knows it is time to help the baby grow. The baby bird will flutter when airborne for the first time. It than instinctively flaps it’s wings and flies off. What more could a parent – animal or otherwise – wish for their child?

How siblings feel about brothers and sisters with special needs: a reality check

Excerpt from: Love That Max (click for full post)

 

So it was interesting to read the results of the just-released Easter Seals Siblings Study, done in partnership with MassMutual. The organization did an in-depth surveys of 351 adults who have a sibling with a developmental or physical disability, and a parallel study with adults who did not have a sibling with disability. Some of the responses were heartening, some made me nervous. A few notable ones:

• Six in ten respondents are involved in the daily lives of their siblings with disability (less than three in ten other siblings say the same).
• About 80 percent say they have a close relationship with their sibling with a disability and that the relationship enhances their life (60 percent of the general public respondents felt the same).
• Nearly half say their parents house their sibling with a disability; 14 percent say their sibling lives with them, and 23 percent say they are already the primary caregiver—and that caring for their sibling is a full-time job.

Easter Seals plans to use the findings to better support families caring for someone with a disability, and raise more awareness of the challenges they face.

 

Children with disabilities more likely to face abuse

Excerpt from: The Times of India (click for full article)

 

While there is a positive trend in terms of societal acceptance of the disabled, there is an urgent need to make regular educational institutes more open towards accepting differently-abled children and spread awareness among families regarding disability, experts said on Tuesday.

A recent World Health Organization report said children with disabilities are four times more likely to experience violence or abuse and far more prone to physical and sexual violence, humiliation and neglect than normal kids. Although activists here said the general trend in attitude towards the disabled here is positive and sympathetic, many cases of physical abuse and negligence go unreported.