Tag Archives: students

Recommended Reading for November 17, 2010

Your friendly neighbourhood Anna is out of town at the moment. Please enjoy this recommended reading post from the future.

Lindsay at Autist’s Corner: Doubly Deviant: On Being Queer and Autistic

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This is a very long, rambly autobiographical post about being bisexual and being autistic: it compares my experiences coming to terms with both of these facts (always knowing about the autism, vs. having to figure out the sexual orientation; and also, doubting the possibility that I could *have* a sexual orientation because I thought autistic people didn’t date or have sex, or even want to do either of those things) with those of Amanda Forest Vivian, who is a lesbian, and autistic, and has written about those things at some length at her own blog. I also discuss the ways being autistic has complicated being gay for me — besides my initial difficulty realizing that what I felt about girls was, in fact, sexual desire, there was also a profound isolation from the larger Gay Community, which I never felt like I could (or would want to) join.

Have we linked to High Functioning yet?

A list of different ways people use the word “high-functioning” about people with developmental disabilities; an attempt to figure out what it actually is supposed to mean.

Interested humans–people with disabilities, staff, family members, allies, and people who are more than one of those things–are invited to share different ways they have heard the term “high-functioning” be used.

Amanda Forest Vivian at I’m Somewhere Else: 12. Bird Brains

The classic example of impaired “social skills” in people with “Asperger’s” is a person who constantly talks about their favorite subject, and doesn’t notice other people’s boredom or discomfort. I will explore this by presenting two people who like to talk differently.

Shiva at Biodiverse Resistance: Call for Papers – * Critical Autism Seminar Day * Tuesday, 18th January 2011 (UK)

Keynote speaker: Anne McGuire* (Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada). Anne’s doctoral research analyses the social significance and productive effects of cultural representations of autism produced and circulated by individuals and collectives engaged in autism advocacy in the contemporary West.

Our aim is for this conference to be as inclusive as possible. We welcome activists, undergraduate and postgraduate students, practitioners and academics to join us.

Melissa Mitchell at Service Dogs: A Way of Life: Book Review: MAKING THE MOVE TO MANAGING YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASSISTANCE SERVICES (PAS): A Toolkit for Youth With Disabilities Transitioning to Adulthood

(includes PDF link to download of book)

This in-depth 69 page guide covers this ins and outs of personal assistants for youth with disabilities utilizing the stories of youth with disabilities to illustrate topics related to utilizing, hiring, and selecting personal assistants. Pages 10-12 talk about Service Dogs and an option for meeting personal care and assistant needs. The section is clear, honest and bringsup many good points people who are new to dogs often don’t realize.

US: National Federation of the Blind: Penn State Discriminates Against Blind Students and Faculty

Baltimore, Maryland (November 12, 2010): The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of blind people, announced today that it has filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, requesting an investigation of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) for violating the civil rights of blind students and faculty. The NFB filed the complaint because a variety of computer- and technology-based services and Web sites at Penn State are inaccessible to blind students and faculty. Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public state universities to offer equal access to their programs and services.

This is being discussed as well at the Chronicle of Higher Education: Penn State Accused of Discriminating Against Blind Students. Please be aware that the comments are… Well, they’re internet comments in a place that isn’t exactly disability-friendly, although there are many people pointing out that blind students would like to be able to get classroom material as well.

Anyway, I have just realised that I am actually writing this from the past – I always get confused when I travel if I’ve gone forward or backward in time.

Recommended Reading for Wednesday, October 27

If you haven’t been following my tale of woe on my personal journal, I have a terrible ear infection and can’t hear out of either ear. But now I have antibiotics to treat the middle ear infection, so any day now I should be able to hear something. I hope. (Woe.)

Today’s Recommend Reading is not entirely about the budget cuts and slashing of disability-related funding, but a lot of it is. I really recommend following Where’s the Benefit? for more in-depth discussion of these cuts.

Disabled People Protest Against The Cuts That Will Kill

Data from Family Resources Survey and the National Equalities Panel found that:
· 75% of disabled women and 70% of disabled men are already at the bottom end of Britain’s income distribution scale living in poverty.
· A tenth of disabled woman have incomes below £31 per week and a tenth of disabled men have incomes below £59 per week including earned income and benefits.
· Under the coalition government’s economy drive disabled people are set to lose at least £140 per month through direct cuts to disability benefits (initially devised to pay the extra costs of being disabled) alone.
· The Tories have threatened to remove our DLA saying that the number of claimants must be reduced by one-fifth.

rich at arbitrary constant: Osborne: Welfare cheats are “like burglars”

I’ll start by reminding people that most disability benefits are not work- or sickness-related. For example, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) helps with the additional costs of disability, primarily related to personal care. It is for people under 65, though you can continue to be in receipt of DLA over the age of 65 if you have it before you are 65. (Attendance Allowance is the equivalent for people over 65. Both are non-means tested.)

And rather than pejorative statements that play to Osborne’s prejudices, let’s introduce some facts.

CripChick’s Blog: thoughts on national coming out day

today is national coming out day. as i think about what this means for me as someone who is so out, yet so so closeted, friends and i are on a conference call going over notes from a recent summit where self advocates with developmental disabilities worked to create policy recommendations on community living. (sadly this is needed because too many providers use gov’t dollars set aside for community living to do things that are really hurtful to disabled people).

we asked people to talk about what group homes and other residential facilities for disabled people often look like. this is what the notes reflected.

Kali at Brilliant Mind, Broken Body: Disability services – hit or miss

Now, one of the interesting things I have to point out here when talking about how my law school handles my disability is that my law school is semi-autonomous from the greater university. It creates an…interesting…situation for disability accomodations. Not bad entirely; it’s had pros and cons for me. The way getting accomodations works for me is like this: I bring my doctor’s letter to the law school’s disability coordinator, who we’ll call W. The disability coordinator faxes the letter over to the university’s disability resources center. ( I officially have a file there and a counselor, but I’ve only really interacted with her over one issue.) The disability resources center sends back its evaluation of what accomodations I’m to be accorded. W and the law school student resources secretary then arrange for the accommodations.

Corina Becker at No Stereotypes Here: Adults Count Autism Survey

Not long ago, I heard about a survey being done by the Redpath Centre on the needs of Autistic Adults. Looking at the website, I see that the purpose of the survey is to gather materials in order to advocate for better services. Curious and always willing to help out, I emailed them, and received this reply.

In the news:

UK: The Guardian: Disabled people among the hardest hit by spending review: Osborne limits employment support allowance to one year. “After one year, people with assets, savings or partners who work will no longer receive benefits. Single people with no assets may be able to qualify for a means-tested safety net, but everyone else will have to manage on their husband or wife’s salary – no matter how low it may be – or dip into any private savings they may have.”

UK: The Guardian: A whirlwind of hatred against the disabled: Just how far are we, as a society, prepared to let violent crime against the disabled spiral upwards? [Trigger Warning for discussions of violence against disabled people, including sexualised violence] “The statistics should shame us all. Nine out of 10 people with learning difficulties have suffered bullying or harassment.”

Canadian Students With Disabilities: There are still spaces in Transcribe Your Class

Transcribe Your Classes!

Please note that spots are filling up quickly for the Liberated Learning Youth Initiative starting this fall. The Youth Initiative provides students with disabilities access to a new Speech Recognition transcription system. During the project, students will be given special user accounts where they will be able to upload recorded lectures and receive speech recognition generated, multimedia transcripts.

Brief application forms are posted at Transcribe Your Class.

We encourage you to review the participation criteria on the website, share this message, and apply to participate. For further information, please contact:

Keith Bain, Project Director, Liberated Learning, Saint Mary’s University
902.496.8741
keith.bain@smu.ca

Janice Stevens, Project Coordinator, Liberated Learning, Saint Mary’s University
902.496.8178
janice.stevens@smu.ca

For your Tool-kit: Letter to my University Residence Coordinator

I’m on a variety of mailing lists dedicated to people with disabilities across Canada, and students are looking for university information. This can vary from what services are offered through Student Accessibility Services, how accessible a campus is, and what residence options they have available.

I only learned two days ago, by chance, that my university offers on-campus accommodations for (some) students with mobility-related disabilities. This information is not available on their website.

So, I drafted an email about it, and I thought it may be useful for others to adapt to their needs.

Dear [Residence Coordinator]

I was very surprised to hear that there are options for students with physical disabilities to live on campus at [Uni]. It was indicated to me that many of the residences at [Uni] have a room set aside on every floor that is larger than most, to accommodate mobility aids, and a private washroom with grip bars. I was very happy to learn of this, although it is not something I would now be able to take advantage of.

I’m writing because I think that this information, along with other information that would be relevant to students with disabilities coming to [Uni], should be available on the Residence website. A search through the Residence site does not bring up any references to students with disabilities or disability-related accommodations.

As well, [Person I spoke to] was unable to tell me about other accommodations that might be necessary for students with disabilities. For example, what policies are in place for students who work with service animals? Is there a way to adapt “general” rooms so that students who are Deaf can get visual alerts for alarms rather than relying on someone else to fetch them in case of an emergency? I understand from the website that [Uni] can accommodate vegan & vegetarian meal plans. I suspect that [Uni] can also accommodate food allergies or intolerances, but I feel this should be highlighted as part of the meal plan in a similar way to vegan* options.

As a student who is affected by disability, I am required to do a lot of advocating for myself and other people with disabilities. Frankly, one gets tired of having to navigate through levels of website to find out information, and I know I’m not the only student who has chosen to assume that, if information for students with disabilities isn’t available easily, then there probably isn’t any. I think making a section of the Residence website discussing explicitly what residences can accommodate students with disabilities, what is required to take advantage of these residences, what services [Uni] is able to provide to assist students with disabilities who wish to live in Residence, and a specific contact for students with disabilities to discuss any additional accommodations required would be very helpful. As well, contacting the Student Accessibility Services department and having them put a link to this information on their website would make it even easier for students with disabilities to know that [Uni] residence halls are happy to accept them.

Sincerely,

[Me!]

Feel free to use & adapt this letter for your needs.