Wandering, also called elopement, is an important safety issue that affects some people with disabilities, their families, and the community. There are steps that parents, teachers, healthcare providers, and others can take to help keep children safe. Wandering is when someone leaves a safe area or a responsible caregiver. This typically includes situations where the person may be injured or harmed as a result.1 Wandering goes beyond the brief time that a typical toddler might […]
Two quantitative studies find that black students are under-identified for disabilities at school Decades of research have documented that students of color, particularly black children, are disproportionately classified by schools as having disabilities. In 2016, 12 percent of black children across the nation received services at school for disabilities ranging from emotional disturbances to physical disabilities to intellectual impairment. Only 8.5 percent of white children received those services. The disability rate for Hispanic students — […]
“Between 2005 and 2017, the percentage of students ages 12—18 who reported being bullied at school during the school year decreased from 29 to 20 percent. In 2017, about 15 percent of students in grades 9–12 reported being electronically bullied during the previous 12 months.” The School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey collected data on bullying51 by asking students ages 12–18 if they had been bullied at school52 during the school […]
What is Down Syndrome? Down syndrome is a condition in which a person has an extra chromosome. Chromosomes are small “packages” of genes in the body. They determine how a baby’s body forms during pregnancy and how the baby’s body functions as it grows in the womb and after birth. Typically, a baby is born with 46 chromosomes. Babies with Down syndrome have an extra copy of one of these chromosomes, chromosome 21. A medical […]
Down syndrome occurs across the human spectrum and is the most common chromosomal condition. Each year, about 6,000 babies are born with Down syndrome — a 1 in 700 chance. The prevalence of Down syndrome increases with the mother’s age. It is associated with delays in physical growth, characteristic facial features and intellectual disability. In fact, the average IQ of an adult with Down syndrome is equivalent to that of an 8-year-old. These are just […]
