First of three reports on health care reform issued by the National Council on Disability January 19, 2016 Washington, DC –The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, and the topic if the National Council on Disability (NCD)’s latest report, is arguably one of the most sweeping and significant pieces of domestic legislation enacted in generations. Implementing the Affordable Care Act: A Roadmap for People with Disabilities is the first in […]
BY CHERYLE B. GARTLEY WITH MARY RADTKE KLEIN (Authors’ Note: While some of this article has been written in the first person as a matter of style, and due to the fact that one of the authors lives in the world of the stigmatized, it is really a joint enterprise.) AN OPPORTUNITY DRESSED IN OVERALLS The June 1, 2015 issue of TIME magazine’s article “Bounce Back” focuses on the importance of resilience and offers scientific […]
BY GAIL FRIZZELL A conservative estimate is that there are more than 1 million people with I/DD waiting for services that may never come. My 30-year-old daughter, Lauren, loves her home in a town just a 20-minute drive from Mom’s. It meets all of her wants and needs and has a lovely view from her bedroom window of woods, and an occasional bear. She’s lived there for five years now. Within the next nine months, […]
BY PEG GRAFWALLNER I want to introduce you to my daughter, Ani. Ani is a vivacious, warm-spirited young woman. She is also autistic and intellectually disabled. Before we go on, I want to define autism. According to the National Autism Center, “Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interactions and social communication and by restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior.” If you ask Ani what autism is, she’ll tell you […]
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE & DENTISTRY BY H. BARRY WALDMAN DDS, MPH, PHD, STEVEN P. PERLMAN DDS, MSCD, DHL (HON), AND MISHA GAREY, DDS “Your age doesn’t define your maturity, your grades don’t define your intellect, and rumors don’t define who you are.” 1 “I hate it when people say, ‘you’re smart for your age.’” 2 “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” 3 (Mark Twain) […]
