For anyone wondering just how much people with disabilities are capable of contributing to the workforce, a study published by the University of Buffalo Regional Institute in the last quarter of 2011 revealed some encouraging quantitative and qualitative results about blind and visually impaired people in the state of New York. The study, which specifically [...]
The state of Virginia is set to begin a major overhaul of its system of caring for people with disabilities that will increase independent-living opportunities and inclusion into the commonwealth’s communities. The changes are triggered by a $2.1 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department announced last Thursday, and are expected to impact the lives [...]
President Obama did not specifically address the impact of his policies on people with disabilities during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, but his blueprint for “an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values” spoke to many of the issues these people grapple [...]
The anonymous essay, titled “What Should I Do About Jacob?,” published Monday on the Inside Higher Ed website (and discussed in this space yesterday) has elicited numerous comments from the author’s colleagues in higher education. The fact that so many of the responses included personal experiences from other professors who have had people with disabilities [...]
Inside Higher Ed published an essay earlier this week relating the experience of a college literature professor teaching a student with disabilities. In order to protect the privacy of the people involved, the online news resource for higher education professionals removed all identifying characteristics of the author, including name and gender, and only identified the [...]
Hartford Courant columnist Susan Campbell writes a great deal about the underserved population in and around Connecticut’s capitol, particularly with respect to families. Last week, she and photographer Richard Messina spent some time with Lois Nitch and her son, Andrew John Puglisi, for an article in advance of a workshop Nitch conducts to help parents [...]
A program in Longmont, Colorado, is training people with disabilities to conduct interviews for radio broadcast as a way to overcome barriers in communicating. Last week, Longmont Times-Call reporter Magdalena Wegrzynand videographer Cliff Grassmick visited the studios of KGNU, an independent radio station in Boulder that broadcasts the segments, to see the program in action. [...]
The headline of Ashley Johnson’s article found earlier this week in The Naperville Sun is a victory for all those who tirelessly advocate for people with disabilities in the workplace. Often one of the main obstacles is the perception that it may be more difficult to communicate with people with disabilities when working alongside them [...]
We cover a lot of stories in this space having to do with individuals and organizations changing their perceptions about what people with disabilities are capable of doing. And even though the accumulation of examples show positive shifts in attitudes and practices when it comes to employment, independent living, and other issues that make life [...]
A man taking his laundry out of a dryer; a young couple sharing a music lesson; another man sitting at his kitchen table slicing a banana. These are all subjects of photographs taken by The Star-Ledger photographer Jerry McCrea, which accompany reporter Dan Goldberg’s article, “Developmentally Disabled Adults Discover the Joy of Independence in Hanover,” [...]