Tuesday, October 29, 2013

AAPD Disability Daily ~ The American Association of People with Disability ~ Your news. Daily. Unfiltered ~ Tuesday, 29 October 2013


AAPD Disability Daily ~ The American Association of People with Disability ~ Your news. Daily. Unfiltered ~ Tuesday, 29 October 2013
NATIONAL
'I was overpaid by Social Security'. CNN (10/28) by Blake Ellis
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Americans dealing with injuries, mental illnesses and other impairments are being notified out of the blue that they've been overpaid by the Social Security Administration and now owe thousands of dollars.
One 33-year-old veteran began receiving Social Security disability payments after his left foot was amputated following an explosion in Iraq in 2007. After going through rehab for his prosthetic leg, he began working full-time for a defense contractor in 2009. As soon as he started collecting a paycheck, the veteran, who asked to remain anonymous, reported his roughly $100,000 annual salary to the Social Security Administration.
When recipients of disability benefits reenter the workforce, they have a nine-month trial period in which they continue to receive benefits. Once the trial period ends and their earnings exceed a certain level -- currently $1,040 a month -- the payments are supposed to stop. And that's exactly what happened in his case.
But then, last July, he noticed a $75,000 deposit in his checking account. Three days later, a letter arrived from the Social Security Administration saying it had reinstated his benefits because he had not been "gainfully employed" during the past three years.
He called the agency and was told the mistake would be investigated. Finally, in November, he was notified that the benefits he received were indeed a mistake and he must repay the agency. But, oddly, the amount requested was a few thousand dollars less than the $75,000 overpayment he had received.
Worried he'd be accused of defrauding a federal agency, he filed an appeal -- which he was later told had been lost. His second appeal is still pending. While he hasn't had to pay any interest on the overpayments, he has had to pay more than $23,000 in income tax on that additional "income."
It turns out Social Security overpayments like these are surprisingly common.
A recent audit conducted by the Government Accountability Office found that Social Security made $1.3 billion in potential overpayments to disability recipients in just two years. While some of that amount can be attributed to fraudsters who game the system, many innocent people are also receiving overpayments and then being asked to pay the agency back. Some continue being paid even after they notify the administration that they are no longer eligible for benefits, while others have no idea they are being overpaid.
"People assume that if the government sends them a check, they're entitled to it," said Cheryl Bates-Harris, who runs the Social Security program at the National Disability Rights Network, which helps disability beneficiaries return to work.
Daniela de la Piedra, an attorney at the Legal Counsel for the Elderly, said she deals with around 30 cases of disability overpayments per year -- one of her current clients has been asked to repay as much as $133,000 in benefits that was received over nine years. Michael Elsken, an attorney at Disability Rights Nebraska, has had clients who were asked to pay back as much as $60,000.
"It's enough to give someone a stroke or panic attack," Elsken said.
Disabled find employment at bakery
The Social Security Administration is unable to comment on specific cases due to privacy laws, but said its accuracy rate for disability payments exceeds 99%. It said the GAO's audit may have been flawed, and it plans to investigate the potential overpayments identified during the audit.
That's little solace for Amanda McFarling. When McFarling was under the age of 18, her mother was receiving disability payments on McFarling's behalf since she was considered a dependent. Now 20, McFarling is being asked to repay $3,847 in benefits that had been overpaid.
She only found out about the overpayments when her tax refund didn't show up this year and the IRS told her it had been taken by the Social Security Administration to repay a debt she owed.
"On top of being a recent graduate, still unemployed, with student loans to cover, [this debt] will follow me, and possibly my credit, for a significant amount of time," she said.
She has applied for a waiver of the debt, and her case is still pending.
Rebecca Rivetto, 33, had been receiving $700 to $800 per month in Supplemental Security Income benefits, which are disability payments administered for low-income individuals. The money was for her two autistic sons -- one of whom is a 7-year-old who needs constant care because he can't communicate and isn't potty-trained.
When Rivetto's husband received a raise that meant their family no longer qualified for benefits, she reported the change in income to Social Security six months later. That turned out to be a big mistake.
After a lot of back and forth between various offices, she was ultimately asked to pay back all the benefits she had received over the last four years -- not just the extra six months. The agency said it had made a mistake and she never should have qualified for disability in the first place.
The result: a bill for $20,000, which is more than double the $8,000 she believes she was actually overpaid. She doesn't have enough money to hire a lawyer so she has given up, agreeing to pay $50 a month. It will take her more than 30 years to fully repay the debt.
"If I can pay them as little as possible until I die, that's what I'm going to do," she said. "It's just sad to me that this entity is there to help people who need help but then something like this happens where they're basically doing the opposite." 
~~~
STATE/LOCAL
Opening statements due in child sex abuse trial of Md. School for the Deaf aide. The Washington Post (10/29)
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — A former Maryland School for the Deaf dormitory aide accused of sexually abusing seven girls and asking three of them for nude pictures had been warned that hugging and texting students was inappropriate, a prosecutor said in her opening statement Tuesday.
But Clarence Taylor III’s lawyer said the alleged molestation at the school’s Columbia campus was merely accidental contact or innocent touching meant to enhance communication among the deaf.
“A hug is not illegal. A high five is not illegal. Running into somebody in a hallway? Not illegal,” defense attorney Brandon Mead told the Howard County jury of seven men and five women.
Assistant State’s Attorney JoAnna Miller said the case against the 38-year-old, married defendant depends largely on the victims’ memories and Taylor’s own videotaped police interview, in which he called the contact accidental. There is no video of Taylor hugging, kissing or fondling the girls, and investigators were unable to retrieve text messages in which he allegedly asked three of them for sexually explicit photographs, Miller said.
Still, she said, the evidence will show that Taylor deliberately touched the girls, then in grades 4 through 8, despite warnings from a supervisor and staff members that his actions were inappropriate.
“It was not an accident that he touched these girls in very private, intimate, sexual areas on their bodies,” Miller said.
The trial is scheduled to run through next week, with testimony from about 15 prosecution witnesses, including the alleged victims. Their allegations that they were molested from 2008 to 2011 surfaced last November when one of the girls confided in school staff member Lisa Velez, the state’s first witness.
“She looked so desperate to get it out. It was almost like she’d been holding onto it for a long time,” Velez testified in American Sign Language. Five American Sign Language interpreters are assisting at the trial.
Two other girls told similar stories to Velez, who informed authorities about their allegations. Four more girls eventually told police they’d been abused.
Defense attorney Mead said the girls were best friends and basketball teammates — “a clique in every sense of the word.”
The seven abuse charges and three counts of soliciting a subject for child pornography carry maximum prison sentences totaling more than 175 years. On Monday, Taylor rejected the state’s settlement offer of guilty pleas to three of the abuse charges and 21 years of active incarceration.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
~~~
A paralyzed bridesmaid defies disability. The Denver Post (10/29) by Michael Booth
For someone who was told she would never walk again, Mackenzie Gorden spends a lot of time thinking about shoes.
A strappy pair of silver-gray heels calls to Gorden in the gym of Craig Hospital in Englewood. Every turn on the treadmill, her chest dangling from a crane and four therapists at heel and knee, is aimed at donning those shoes. Every arch of her back in the pool to tighten her skinny abs. Every grunting step with a walker.
Those low-heel shoes should be on her bridesmaid feet for her sister's upcoming wedding in Iowa. The shoes, and the legs they are strapped to, should be working on their own. They should walk her up the aisle.
"I never accepted that I couldn't walk again," Gorden says. "If I don't want to be in the chair, I've got to do something myself to get out of it."
Gorden is among thousands of patients who are straining through grueling paralysis-recovery training dubbed locomotor. The groundbreaking therapy re-creates walking motions by force until the spinal cord learns to control muscles the brain used to control.
Much of the spinal-cord injury community is pivoting quickly toward locomotor, which offers the promise of increased mobility and improved lives to patients who have benefited from few medical advancements.
Craig Hospital has adopted locomotor wholeheartedly — and the results are starting to show. Patients are standing up and taking steps after years of sedentary life. Quadriplegics lean only on walkers to shuffle hundreds of feet around the Craig gym.
A key selling point of locomotor is that even if the patient never walks, movement-based therapy promises enormous benefits for the rest of the body. Movement, even when an outside force is manipulating much of the action, builds muscle and bone density to ward off pressure sores; speeds circulation to limbs to reduce atrophy; and cuts obesity, a prime worry of more-sedentary paralysis patients.
Determined to walk again
All these hopes are in play on a hot summer afternoon in the buzzing gymnasium at Craig. Gorden is strapped into the TheraStride, with 30 percent of her body weight taken away by an overhead hoist.
Four Craig therapists hover or squat for the walking exercise: One at each knee to flex the joint at the proper time in her gait, another behind to work on ankles and back position, and the last at the computer console, adjusting the speed of the treadmill mat.
Gorden stares into a small mirror hung from the TheraStride frame to check her back and shoulder position during the stride.
"Unlock that left knee, Mackenzie," therapist Selena LeClair bellows over the noise of the rolling treadmill and clanking weight racks.
Gorden is wearing the wedding shoes, seeing if she can feel them when her toes hit the rolling tread. At various times in the gym, she also wears electrical stimulators to fire muscle groups: the interior of her fibula to pick up her toe during a stride; on her abdomen to rebuild core strength that will pull her buttocks back in line while she steps.
She teases the young therapists but has less to say to her mom, Karen, who sits nearby during four to five hours of therapy a day. They sometimes wear on each other, after 9½ weeks away from Iowa, living in an extended-stay hotel room in Lone Tree.
"I've never seen her shed a tear," Karen Gorden says, watching every stride.
Gorden retains the rail-thin figure of the dancer and cheerleader she was. But a girl can have many goals. "Maybe the electrical stimulation will give me a six-pack," she laughs. "I've never had that."
Crash changes everything
One night 16 months ago, Gorden was out late from visiting her boyfriend two towns away. Her headlights caught a deer on a sweeping, two-lane road, and when she swerved, her truck plummeted out of sight into a farm ditch.
Gorden hung there upside-down for nearly two hours, one arm pinned behind her head, not feeling her legs. Her other arm was numb and could barely move.
Her cellphone buzzed from the ceiling, now below her head. She could see her mom was calling to remind her of curfew, but she couldn't move to reach the phone.
An off-duty emergency responder eventually spotted her while out on a motorcycle ride.
Gorden was 18 and looking forward to senior year. She had danced and cheered all over the state and was to captain her team on a summer trip to cheer in Hawaii. She was a nursing assistant and wanted to pursue a nursing degree. Shattered C5 and C6 vertebrae now clamped down on those dreams.
Those were the dreams Steve Gorden had in mind when a Des Moines doctor insisted his daughter, of adult age, should know immediately she would never walk again. Steve insisted that Gorden never hear it, but she heard the conversation.
She thought about it during the helicopter flight to the Mayo Clinic in southern Minnesota, and when a psychologist told her she should give up becoming a nurse.
In the summer of 2012, when Gorden's acute injury healed, she left Mayo for Craig. There, doctors, nurses and physical therapists taught her to use a wheelchair and comb her hair. They started the long process of loosening her stiff fingers, reviving her frozen triceps and figuring out what signals her legs could receive.
At her first meeting with her Craig care team, Dr. William Scelza rolled in on his wheelchair. Gorden eventually learned Scelza was paralyzed at 17 in a friend's car crash.
"If he went to med school," Gorden thought, "I can be a nurse."
Back in Iowa for her senior year, she cheered football from her chair. At the state dance tournament, the team hung glow sticks on the wheels and whirled her on stage.
At a six-month evaluation back at Craig, therapists told her she was a good candidate to pursue walking and other goals through a network of rehabilitation hospitals that focus on locomotor training.
In the meantime, Gorden intended to walk across her high school stage for graduation. She did stand up to receive the diploma, but the rest "didn't go so well," Karen said.
Progress by the step
That brought Gorden and her mother, their sport utility vehicle crammed with clothes and the wheelchair, back to Englewood in June. The rest of the large Gorden family stayed in Iowa to plan sister Brittanie's early-September wedding. At the time, Gorden could stand on her own with a walker for 26 seconds.
By August, that was up to five minutes. Arching her back in the pool, jolting herself with electrodes, scraping a walker across the gym floor were all adding up. "For a long time, I couldn't use my fingers at all," Gorden says. Now, she can type on the iPhone she keeps constantly perched on her lap, and do her own makeup and hair. To a pickup-driving cheerleader with a sharp sense of humor, those are not small things.
The mid-August day before she left Craig for home, Gorden walks upright outdoors for the first time since her rollover. Three therapists strap her into a high-tech assisted-walking device called an exoskeleton.
"The robot has you; you just have to trust it," says Craig's gym director, Julie Waldie.
"I feel like I either have on a jet pack or a leaf blower," Gorden replies.
The skeleton and its sensors can feel her intentions through her weight shifts, and it helps her walk out the Craig door and around a patio.
Karen watches, smiling wistfully. "I wish we had that at home," she says of the motorized skeleton.
Gorden comes back indoors, beaming. "I did the exoskeleton, I walked outside, and I used crutches! That was three in one."
It's not just the September wedding she wants to get home for. Classes at college are starting in late August. Gorden is determined to start school with her friends.
Spinal-cord patients Gorden's age told her she needed to get on with things. Move away from living for rehabilitation, and toward "real life."
"Easy for them to say," Karen observes. "They don't have a chance of walking again." As the family quartermaster, Karen would have to organize 6:30 a.m. rides for Gorden's 90-minute drive to campus.
Gorden is annoyed with that attitude. She knows she'll be far away from Craig's expertise and encouragement. In her small town, she says, "I'm the only spinal-cord injury I think they've ever dealt with."
But youth, if nothing more, has her believing there is time for everything. College, friends, more therapy, wedding shoes.
And now, that aisle
The next day, Gorden takes an assisted walk down the imaginary wedding aisle. She drapes her arms over a therapist's shoulders, sticks her tongue between her teeth and pushes hard in four upward lunges to get out of a chair. Another therapist holds a remote to fire electrical pulses that will flex her toe at the right moment in a step.
Gorden's hip brings her right leg forward in a stride but does not stop the toes in time. They cross over into the path of her waiting left leg. The therapist smoothly darts in her foot to slide Gorden's right foot back into line.
"The first step is always the hardest," Gorden says, gritting her teeth.
Three weeks later at a dance hall in Iowa, she smiles wide instead of clenching her teeth. Wearing a blue satin bridesmaid's dress, Gorden is wheeled to the start of the aisle.
She pulls hard on the arm of her brother on her left and the best man on her right, and they stand upright together. A pause, a few seconds to think, and then somehow a signal breaks through from her brain or her spine, and her right leg swings forward.
The steps are not beautiful, on their own. Her right leg crosses too far, her left leg follows, also too far. But each time, the men bracing her discreetly slide their loafers in to nudge her foot back in line. Gorden joins the other bridesmaids at the altar. The wheelchair carries nothing but Gorden's bouquet.
Karen had said in the first year of her daughter's injury that she had lost all the daydreams of Gorden getting married. But she thinks she "can see that happening, now."
Brittanie follows up the aisle and hugs her little sister hard.
Only then does Gorden sit back down in the wheelchair.
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686, mbooth@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mboothdp
~~~
OPINION: Letter: Disabilities aren’t one-size-fits-all. The Washington Post (10/28)
Regarding Petula Dvorak’s Oct. 25 Metro column, “A symbol for the rights of people with a disability”:  
I have two sisters with Down syndrome. The people I know who have dedicated their lives to making sure those with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as anyone else are all rooting for Jenny Hatch to succeed. But every disability can’t be lumped in the same category, nor can every individual be cast in the same light.
Independence is the right goal. However unpopular to say, though, with an IQ of 50, Ms. Hatch will always need a substantial support network. Ms. Dvorak did not explain how that would fall into place. Few would disagree that the ultimate goal is a job, an apartment and independent living, but that goal must be weighed against the fact that many of these folks cannot make simple, everyday decisions. Any suggestion that caregivers and teachers are holding them back is outrageous. Just like parents of so-called normal kids, I’m sure that there are some parents who have trouble letting go, but the vast majority wants to see their kids succeed.  
Ms. Dvorak wrote, “Jenny has a Medicaid waiver to provide her with the aid she needs to be independent.” But she did not mention that an applicant might have to wait months or years before obtaining one and that a waiver does not guarantee independence. It only opens doors that should already be open and helps financially in the smallest of ways.
People like Ms. Hatch are to be supported in every way. Our country can only benefit if everyone contributes to the fullest extent. But please don’t place everyone in the same category or make it sound easy.
Paul Thieberger, Lorton
~~~
INTERNATIONAL
Man with multiple sclerosis becomes first disabled person to skydive over Mount Everest.
Fox News (10/28)
A French multiple sclerosis sufferer became the first disabled person to skydive over Mount Everest, successfully completing his landing on Sunday before being taken to hospital as a precaution.
"I feel very happy. I am exhausted but very happy," Marc Kopp said from a hospital bed in Kathmandu where doctors examined him for any injuries sustained during the jump.
The 55-year-old Kopp, who lives in Longwy northeast of Paris, has suffered for more than a decade from multiple sclerosis, the degenerative disease of the nervous system which disrupts the brain's ability to communicate with the body. Muscles weaken, lesions emerge on the brain and spinal cord and in the worst cases, patients can lose the ability to speak or walk.
The tandem skydive saw Kopp jump out of a helicopter hovering 10,000 meters above the mountain, accompanied by his friend, champion skydiver Mario Gervasi.
"I hope my action will inspire others living with this illness. I hope many more will follow in my footsteps," Mr Kopp told AFP.
He said preparation for the jump was "very painful" and left his whole body hurting. Although he usually uses a wheelchair, the trek through the Himalayas meant he had to spend several hours a day riding a horse, which was hard on his spine, to reach the airstrip for the jump.
"There were many times in the last few days when I thought I wouldn't be able to realize my dream," he said.
~~~
HEALTH
Despite years of ADHD research, diagnosis remains tricky and treatment, more so. The Washington Post (10/28) by Amanda Mascarelli
When my son was in preschool, I did what many parents of excessively energetic and impulsive preschoolers have surely done: I worried whether his behavior might be a sign of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Then I sought input from two pediatricians and a family therapist.
The experts thought that his behavior was developmentally normal but said it was still too early to tell for sure. They offered some tips on managing his behavior and creating more structure at home. One pediatrician worked with my son on self-calming techniques such as breathing deeply and pushing on pressure points in his hands. He also suggested an herbal supplement, Valerian Super Calm, for him to take with meals and advised us on dietary adjustments such as increasing my son’s intake of fatty acids. Studies have shown that a combination of omega-3 (found in foods such as walnuts, flaxseed and salmon) and omega-6 fatty acids (from food oils such as canola and flax) can reduce hyperactivity and other ADHD symptoms in some children.
In the couple of years since trying these techniques, my son has outgrown most of those worrisome behaviors. I had just about written off the possibility of ADHD until a few weeks ago, when his kindergarten teacher mentioned that she was going to keep an eye on him for possible attention issues. Hearing that left me worried and heavy-hearted.
Why is it still so hard to diagnose ADHD? And why is there so much emotional baggage associated with treating it?
There are no firm numbers for the number of children with ADHD in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 9 percent of U.S. children ages 5 to 17 had received diagnoses of ADHD as of 2009.
It is far more prevalent in boys than in girls. Among those given the diagnosis, a small minority suffers extreme symptoms, and in those cases, diagnosis is fairly straightforward. Children with extreme cases tend to have trouble staying engaged in tasks, even those that they enjoy, for any length of time and find it impossible to stay still, particularly in classroom settings.
But for the vast majority of children who are not so severely affected or who only partially fit the criteria, symptoms are often blurred, making it much more difficult to assess the disorder.
“There is no line” that defines who does and does not have ADHD, says Lawrence Diller, a behavioral developmental pediatrician and an assistant clinical professor at the University of California at San Francisco. Except in the extreme, diagnosing ADHD is a “judgment call based on subjective opinion,” he says.
A flawed testing system
Schools play a major role in whether a child ends up with an ADHD diagnosis and is treated with stimulant medications. A large majority of referrals are generated by problems reported at school, Diller says, yet schools typically do not investigate the context of learning disorders and behavioral problems. “The whole system of diagnosis [of ADHD] is based primarily on symptoms of behavior only.”
Many doctors and some schools rely on the Vanderbilt Assessment Scale, a questionnaire meant to flag symptoms of ADHD and identify other underlying conditions. It includes general statements — such as “Is distracted by extraneous stimuli” and “Is forgetful in daily activities” — and asks the person completing the form to rank how often each applies to the child throughout the day.
But the test does not provide the necessary insights into a child’s home life — discipline patterns, inadequate learning environments, familial difficulties — Diller says. “If the behavior crosses the threshold on these forms, the parent is likely to be told the child has ADHD, even though there can be a host of other reasons why the kid is acting that way.” The child may also have other problems that have little to do with attention but result in ADHD-type behaviors.
For instance, a child with an auditory processing problem — a disorder in which the ears and the brain are not properly coordinated — will hear oral instructions, but then those instructions might get scrambled. Instead of getting out the blue notebook and turning to Page 20, he or she may take out the wrong book and look lost, stare out the window or bother a friend. “That will be reported on the Vanderbilt as being distractible and not completing tasks,” Diller says.
Diller recommends that parents first address discipline and learning issues before turning to medications, particularly in children younger than 6. He shows parents how to be more immediate with setting limits, such as using a timer to let kids know how long they can play or being clear about consequences (for instance, if cleanup isn’t sufficient, toys are removed immediately for a brief period of time), and he recommends “1-2-3 Magic,” a book that gives parents tools for effective discipline.
For “the kids who are in this gray zone, it can be difficult,” says Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “What we usually say is to err on the side of trying to provide kids with structure and feedback. If that doesn’t help, then you think about medication.”
The science of ADHD
Researchers are beginning to understand the neural pathways that underlie ADHD, progress that is identifying potential new strategies for treatment.
One promising area of research has found that dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain commonly associated with motivation and reward, is reduced in adults with ADHD. (Such studies have not been done in children since they require the use of small amounts of radioactivity, which is not recommended for people younger than 18.)
In a 2009 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a team led by Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reported that decreased dopamine signaling in the ventral striatum, an area of the brain involved with reward and motivation, was associated with attention problems in adults with untreated ADHD. The results suggest that low dopamine levels in the reward center might explain why many children and adults with ADHD struggle with a lack of motivation about certain tasks.
In a 2012 study in the Journal of Neuroscience, Volkow and colleagues showed that methyl­phenidate, a stimulant that is the active ingredient in Concerta and Ritalin, restored dopamine to normal levels and significantly improved inattention and hyperactivity in adults. Notably, they found that the dopamine messages were enhanced in the ventral striatum following treatment. This showed that increased dopamine transmission in the reward center of the brain was key to improving their patients’ ADHD symptoms.
Even though stimulants have been proved safe and effective in children with ADHD, the decision to medicate is controversial and fraught with anxiety for many parents.
“We just tend to fight against” treating a disorder whose diagnosis is based on behavioral symptoms, Insel says. He emphasizes that behavioral interventions should be tried first in those with moderate symptoms but says that medication can be remarkably helpful for children with the disorder.
Deferring treatment for a child who needs help can have serious consequences, he notes, as with children whose self-esteem begins to suffer because they are constantly being corrected for not sitting still or paying attention. “The cost of not doing something about it becomes more severe,” Insel says.
Even if your child is identified as having ADHD, it remains an open question whether he will outgrow the diagnosis. A 2013 study in the journal Pediatrics found that just 30 percent of people who had received such diagnoses as children still had symptoms as adults. But other research has shown that the number is as high as 65 percent.
In our case, we plan to observe our son closely and stay in touch with the teacher, but we don’t yet have major concerns. He’s happy in school and progressing well. But as any parent surely understands, it can be nerve-racking to wait and see, especially when a child’s well-being is at stake.
~~~
EDUCATION
Concerns Raised Over ‘Highly Qualified’ Teachers. Disability Scoop (10/28) by Michelle Diament
(Updated: October 28, 2013 at 11:44 AM CT)
When Congress acted earlier this month to end the government shutdown, lawmakers also extended a provision that advocates contend has negative implications for students with disabilities.
Tucked inside the legislation that brought the government back to life was a provision allowing teachers to be dubbed “highly qualified” even if they are still working on their certification through an alternative training program like Teach for America.
For years, disability and special education advocates have worked to end the practice, arguing that it’s disingenuous to confer such a title on rookie educators who are still learning their trade. Advocates have long argued that low-income students, minorities and those in special education are disproportionately affected by the policy because they are most frequently assigned less experienced teachers.
“What we can’t do is put someone in a classroom who’s only had a few hours of training and call them ‘highly qualified,’” said Kim Hymes, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Council for Exceptional Children, one of more than 90 civil rights, disability and education groups that oppose the practice.
“What that does for parents and the community is it coveys a sense of knowledge that’s simply not there,” she said.
The debate dates back to the early days of No Child Left Behind when regulators determined that teachers could be called “highly qualified” from the time they began an alternative training program.
But in 2010 a federal court ruling indicating that Congress intended “highly qualified” to only apply to teachers who had completed their training brought the policy to an end.
Subsequently, late that year, Congress intervened with a law allowing the initial regulation to stand. Since that time, lawmakers have extended their exception for rookie educators one year at a time.
With the legislation passed this month, however, the allowance for teachers in training was extended for two years through the 2015-2016 school year.
It’s unclear how many students with disabilities are impacted by the policy, Hymes said. Congress has asked the U.S. Department of Education to study how many kids are educated by teachers in training but a report on the issue is not expected until next fall.
However, given the frequent teacher shortages in special education, Hymes said the field is particularly reliant on individuals who are trained in alternative programs.
“We don’t disagree that there is a need for alternate-route programs,” Hymes said. “What our issue is, is that we do not believe that individuals who have not completed their preparation should be called ‘highly qualified.’”
Allison Preiss, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate’s education committee, told Disability Scoop that Harkin “worked with members on both sides of the aisle to include the teacher qualification language” in the bill, calling it a “short-term fix” while Congress works on more long-term updates to federal education law.
~~~
CULTURE/MEDIA
Baseball Card Features Batboy With Down Syndrome. Disability Scoop (10/29) by Shaun Heasley
In a rare move, a man with Down syndrome who made national headlines as a batboy for the Cincinnati Reds is getting his very own baseball card.
The card featuring Ted Kremer, 30, entered circulation earlier this month as part of the 2013 Topps Update, a collection that includes players who switched teams, All-Stars, rookies and memorable moments as well as variant cards like the one of “Teddy Kremer,” reports The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Kremer of White Oak, Ohio has Down syndrome and gained notoriety after inspiring the Reds while serving as a batboy for the team during a game last year. Since then, Kremer was profiled on ESPN and worked for the team this past summer.
Officials at Topps, which makes baseball cards, came up with the idea for Kremer’s card. Typically, only players, managers and coaches are allowed to be shown in the team uniform, though the Reds made an exception for Kremer, the newspaper reported.
A variation of regular card No. US268, Kremer’s card shows him alongside former Reds manager Dusty Baker. It’s unknown how many were placed into circulation, but as of Monday afternoon, three Kremer cards were for sale on eBay ranging in price from $100 to $175.
~~~
David Mitchell on autism, expectations and 'The Reason I Jump'. Los Angeles Times (10/28) by Carolyn Kellogg
David Mitchell, whose complex novel “Cloud Atlas” was adapted into a film last year, has quietly hit bestseller lists again as one of three authors of “The Reason I Jump.” He shares credit with KA Yoshida and young Japanese writer Naoki Higashida. Higashida has a severe form of autism, but, as a 13-year-old, wrote this book about what it’s like to live inside his head. Mitchell collaborated with his wife, Yoshida, on the translation from the Japanese; as parents of an autistic child, they see the book as a way to break through the speechlessness of autism.
Mitchell, who appeared on “The Daily Show” earlier this month to talk about the book, spoke to us by phone from his home in Ireland.
Why was it important to you to translate Naoki Higashida’s “The Reason I Jump” into English?
Writers have to strive to do what [Higashida] just IS. He is his voice. As his translators into English we tried to stay as close and true to that voice as we could do -- we tried to give it a boyish insouciance that comes through in the Japanese. Hence the few grammatical mistakes, such as “us kids with autism,” instead of “we kids with autism,” for example.
He’s been giving this genetic lucky break whereby his autism doesn’t preclude being able to express his mental eloquence through a keyboard independently. He’s taken that lucky break and used it with more energy and application and determination and persistence than I think I’ve ever applied to my non-autisitc life.
What do you think people who aren’t familiar with autism might get out of this book?
I hope that people whose lives aren’t directly touched by autism will read it, because then their lives will be indirectly touched by autism. Then when they see someone who has autism they will be less fazed, less creeped, and more understanding.
When Naoki talks about how memory works for him, inadvertently, he nudges us neurotypical lot into thinking about how our memory works. He talks about memory being like a pool of dots, one of those pointilist paintings, rather than a chronological line. If you have autism, it’s really hard to sort out the distant past, into the recent past, into five minutes ago. It starts making you think about how your memory works, too.
Inadvertently, it’s quite a philosophical book; by being a users manual of his autistic mind, he also can cast light on how our brains and our minds work as well. In a way that I find quite intellectually nourishing.
How did you come to understand your son had autism?
Lack of eye contact and a very tortuously slow language acquisition and compared to our non-autistic daughter; a lack of interest in books aged 18 months to two years. Because our son has an elder sibling who doesn’t have autism, our family had an in-built basis of comparison. When outsiders maybe imagine a single monstrous shock, it’s not really like that. By the time the assessment comes through you pretty much know yourself....
Autism teaches you many things and one is that bitterness about the genetic hand you’ve been dealt really doesn’t help. Life deals all of us a whammy from time to time; being autistically wired is a pretty tough one in the scale of them. People like Naoki -- and our son too -- who handle it from the inside and chip away at the problems it throws up, they really are heroes.
The book has been on bestseller lists. Have you been surprised by the reaction to it?
I think both me and my publishers were very pleasantly taken by surprise by the size of the audience that the book’s found....And Jon Stewart cares very sincerely about autism, and I owe him a couple of beers. I really do. It’s great that people in the media are willing to throw their weight behind a cause like this. I’ll be grateful to him forever.
Was it your first time on "The Daily Show"?
The only piece of American TV I’ve done before was "Good Morning Minnesota" or something; “The Daily Show” was the first national American TV show I’ve ever done. I was a little bit nervous, but Jon came in before the show and made sure we were on the same wave-length. Actually, me and my agent and publicist and my editors – we played Scrabble in the green room. That was very relaxing. Except my agent fleeced us all.  
What are some of the misperceptions about autism the book can address?
The problem with received wisdom is you don’t know it’s received wisdom; that’s why it’s somewhat corrosive. I never really noticed that I had assumed that people with autism, to be direct, don’t have imaginations. Or, I never noticed how it had gotten into my head, I can’t pinpoint the moment I started to believe that people with autism are incapable of empathy. There’s a number of occasions in the book Naoki displays a level of empathy that’s unusual in any 13-year-old, let alone an autistic 13-year-old.
He’s asked at one point – he asks himself, the book’s mostly a list of questions and answers – at one point, the question is, what’s the worst thing about being autistic? And his answer is, it’s not actually what you’d think. It’s not the day-to-day hard grind of having a mind that’s editorless, that isn’t under your control. The hardest thing is knowing you’re making massive headaches and stress for everyone around you. That your autism is causing your parents to cry at night when they think you’re asleep. That kind of stuff, you know?
This is what Naoki does routinely in his book: Metaphor. Creating fiction. Imagining a world that isn’t. Which is what every storyteller does, and reporting from that world. A playfulness with language. The manipulation of the reader’s expectation. Pop-pop-pop-pop go falsehoods about autism. We confuse the symptoms and the causes. I’m making him sound like some sort of guru here – he really isn’t, he’s just describing what his life is like, and how his mind works.
We muddle the symptom and the cause. We do that, not him. We do that.
What do you see next for autism?
I look forward to a future that maybe talks more about autisms than autism. We need a revolution in autism. The book’s a little part of that. It offers one ripple of what I hope can turn into a big wave. We need to credit people with autism with much more imagination, intelligence, empathy and human potential – they have so much more than they are given credit for. They need help and understanding to make that intelligence, that potential, manifest but it really is there.
~~~
Cool “Disco” Dan opens up about his battle with mental health. The Washington Post (10/28) by Clinton Yates
“There’s something I want to say, this is really important.”
Danny Hogg, the iconic D.C. graffiti artist known as Cool “Disco” Dan, is speaking, which is noteworthy. What he’s speaking about is even more remarkable.
He pulls out a piece of paper and reads carefully from the sheet. The part highlighted in yellow.
“I’ve been diagnosed with personality disorder, bipolar and schizophrenia. And people who don’t understand me, I lash out at people when I feel threatened or disrespected. And it caused a bunch of people to dislike me, due to people not understanding what I have is a mental illness. So I’m on medication to keep from having outbursts. But due to me having outbursts when not taking my medication, it caused about 70 percent of people in my life to dislike me.”
Hogg, whose tags primarily along Metro’s Red Line helped define the city’s visual landscape in the late ’80s and early ’90s, is no longer an outgoing person. He has no permanent home. And he’s also a movie star.
A documentary about his life and art, “The Legend of Cool ‘Disco’ Dan,” introduced Hogg, 43, to a new generation when it was released this year. It also served as a reminder of a very different D.C. of a few decades ago. And it thrust Hogg back into the spotlight, one he tentatively stepped into two weekends ago when the film screened at AFI Silver in Silver Spring. He watched the movie among fans and later signed autographs for them. But it wasn’t easy.
“It’s really hard for me to be around people due to my anxiety. It’s just one of those things where I have to seek treatment on a daily basis or I’ll just go into kind of like a violent rage,” Hogg says, adding that he sees a therapist weekly. This conversation takes place at a friend’s house in Prince George’s County, where Hogg is staying temporarily. He’s accompanied by Joseph Pattisall, one of the filmmakers behind the documentary. Hogg’s illness is mentioned in the movie but in a vague manner. That was in deference to his privacy and also out of respect for the difficulty of his situation. But he speaks in no uncertain terms about what his life is like.
“I keep a lot of anger bottled up inside me. And it comes out when I have a confrontation with somebody. I may overreact to something that’s not a big deal,” Hogg says.
He rarely makes eye contact while speaking.
“Exercising helps me a lot. It helps me to be a better person. Most people exercise, they burn off calories; I’m burning off stress and depression. And I like to meditate a lot.”
Hogg is likable as he speaks straightforwardly about his struggles with disease, fame and the city. He says his life became far less stable as his illness took hold. Painting is not something he plans to get back to. He likes the murals in the city that he's familiar with from the Internet, but it’s an art that’s behind him.
He has a sharp command of what sets him off and why.
“When I’m not taking [meds], I just feel on edge,” he says. “I feel like I’m going to attack somebody. I know I have to be in a mellow area to keep focused. . . . I’m just trying to be a better person, but a lot of people don’t understand me who don’t know me. And may label me as a troublemaker and it’s not like that. It’s just that I have a mental illness.”
One thing he likes a lot is television. It’s where he got his nickname and tag (it comes from an episode of ’70s sitcom “What’s Happening”), and he enjoys it as a form of escapism.
“I like all reality shows,” he says. “It just reminds me of like, an anti-documentary about them. I like to understand people, because it makes me realize that we all got things going on in our life. Sometimes, I always think it’s just me that’s dealing with certain situations in life, so when I get to really see these people behind the scenes, it makes me realize I’m not alone as far as going through daily crisis and stuff like that. It makes me feel like, okay, I’m not alone.”
When “The Legend of Cool ‘Disco’ Dan” screened two weekends ago, he was far from alone. Some in attendance were repeat viewers, having caught it earlier this year. Others brought their children for a history lesson. But most of all, people showed up to see Cool “Disco” Dan. And to get his iconic lefthanded signature on a poster or DVD.
“The chance to actually speak to him and tell him, ‘Man you really brightened up the city,’ that was something,” says Paula O’Keefe, who moved to the area in the ’80s from Boston. “When we first saw the film, [we understood] he was very reclusive. He was not here and I didn’t know if we’d ever get to actually see him in person. But here he is, he survived all this,” she says.
Tahar Achour, 12, is there with his mom and having the time of his life. “I learned a lot about go-go, all these taggers and what it meant to D.C. What was D.C. and what it is now.”
How was meeting Dan? “It was awesome.”
What are you going to do with your poster? “I’m gonna keep it forever.”
Most important to Hogg, however, is seeing the old faces. One of those old faces is a graffiti writer who goes by SMK. He is happy to see Hogg, whom he’s known since the ’90s. SMK says that at the time, mental illness was not something on his mind.
“Dan has spent the night at my house a couple times. . . . Didn’t see any effect whatsoever. Little [things]. Sometimes, he would just walk away from you, and just be gone. He wouldn’t say goodbye. But you accepted that. That’s how he was,” SMK says. Acceptance came with the territory.
But the man who is literally by Hogg’s side the entire weekend is Peter Green. The two met at a psychiatric treatment center in San Marcos, Tex., as young men in the ’80s. Ask Hogg if there is anyone he considers a friend, and Green is the only person he names.
As Hogg signs autographs, Green makes sure everyone spelled their names clearly on notecards, so Hogg would know who to make each autograph out to. Sounds like a simple task, but it’s invaluable.
“If you wasn’t there, I would have been panicking,” Hogg tells him after the show.
“I’m proud of Danny,” Green says. “For him to come out like this and actually be in public, that’s a big step for him. As well as me. It helped the mental part of what we go through. We’re not socially interactive people,” Green, a father of four, says. “But you can cover something [up] by just doing it. I think that’s kind of what happened to us.”
At dinner that night, Hogg orders combination fried rice. He is the only one who finishes all his food. On the way back to the theater for the last screening of the night, Hogg looks up and sees his name in lights, scrolling across the theater’s marquee.
He finally cracks a beaming smile. Green asks him what he’s going to do next in his life and career.
“I don’t know, man,” Hogg reflects. “Maintain growing.”
~~~
BUSINESS
Comcast bows new disability support offerings. CED (10/28) by Mike Robuck
Comcast has thrown its support behind viewers with disabilities by creating a dedicated accessibility customer support team as well as opening an accessibility product and development lab.
As part of October’s National Disability Awareness Month, Comcast is also offering a special collection of disability-themed programming on its VOD platform.
“Accessibility is the measure of how effectively people with disabilities can use and enjoy the programming, products and services we deliver and how successful we are at making these solutions available to the widest possible audience,” said Tom Wlodkowski, vice president of accessibility for Comcast. “Comcast and my team are laser focused on developing new innovative solutions that enhance the user experience for these customers as well as utilizing these same technologies to ultimately enhance and improve how all of our customers interact with our services.”
Comcast subscribers can contact a dedicated support team of 22 agents trained on all things related to Comcast accessibility, in the new Comcast Accessibility Center of Excellence for help on specific and general support issues.
Customers can access the center directly by calling 855-270-0379 seven days a week between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. (ET). Customers can also contact an Accessibility Center of Excellence representative via chat.
Comcast said its Comcast Accessibility Lab was both a working lab for the development of accessible products and features and a showcase of assistive technologies used by people with disabilities to interact with mainstream mobile, online and desktop user interfaces.
Comcast is also using the lab for focus groups and usability testing with communities of people with disabilities to learn more about how customers can use its services as well as to help educate its employees about accessibility.
Co-located with Comcast Labs in Philadelphia, the space features solutions such as cable TV’s first talking program guide that the company plans to launch next year.
The programming featuring disability themes runs through Nov. 8. Some of the shows include: Children of a Lesser God, High Ground, I Am Sam, Mr. Holland's Opus and Radio; TV shows including CSI (CBS), Friday Night Lights (Xfinity Streampix), Glee (FOX), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), The Michael J Fox Show (NBC), Parenthood (NBC), Project Runway (Lifetime), Push Girls (Sundance) and Switched at Birth (Xfinity Streampix); as well as specials including Bio: Heather Mills (Bio Channel), Lives Worth Living (PBS), Moto X (ESPN) and multiple interviews with Paralympics athletes (NBC Sports).
~~~~~~~
American Association of People with Disabilities
2013 H Street NW, 5th Floor
Washington, DC 20006 United States
~~~~~~~
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)