By Rachel Dornhelm on NPR’s Morning Edition

People with developmental disabilities like autism and Down syndrome always have a hard time finding work. It’s estimated that two-thirds of them are unemployed.

These days things are only getting worse, advocates say, as almost every state is considering deep cuts in funding for programs that help people with disabilities find and keep jobs. John Kemp of the U.S. Business Leadership Network says negative stereotypes also pose a major obstacle to employment.

Michael Medina, who has developmental disabilities, struggled to find another job after the closing of the store where he’d been working as a janitor. But he was one of the lucky ones. With the help of The Arc, he was hired as a bagger at Trader Joe’s.

Cover story from CommonWealth magazine (registration required). An excerpt:

The cost of special education in Massachusetts is approaching $2 billion a year, but there is little evidence that the state’s huge investment is paying off as hoped.

… A three-month investigation by CommonWealth found what few in 2000 anticipated: The number of special education students, after dropping sharply in 2001, rebounded to near its previous level even as overall school enrollment was shrinking.

Special education children, as a group, are falling further behind their regular education peers every year, and an achievement gap of large proportions has opened between special education students in wealthy and in poor communities.

Comments begin here.

The magazine has posted a ‘correction and clarification’ of the story here.

From the Baltimore Sun:

The Rosewood Center, a Maryland institution that was founded in 1888 as an asylum for the “feeble-minded,” closed its doors this week after decades of criticism for abuse and neglect.

Neighboring Stevenson University has expressed an interest in taking over most of the 200-acre campus, which is filled with dilapidated buildings contaminated with lead and asbestos. One state senator has called it an “environmental cesspool.”

A 2007 survey performed by the Maryland Disability Law Center found that conditions at the facility posed “immediate jeopardy to the health and safety of residents.”

“It is a great thing for Maryland that this institution is closed,” said Nancy Pineles, an attorney with the Maryland Disability Law Center, a watchdog group that promotes the civil rights of people with disabilities.

See also:

Second Opinion: What would be better than Rosewood — Boston Globe

Earlier posts here.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Nancy Lublin says it’s time for President Obama to step up as a global leader on disability rights and champion the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). An excerpt:

Not signing and ratifying the CRPD sends the message that while we protect our disabled, we don’t care if the rest of the world does too. If we feel strongly enough that our own citizens living with disabilities should be protected, shouldn’t we feel that those living in countries without such laws are entitled to rights and protection as well?

By signing and ratifying the CRPD, the U.S. will send a message to the world: Disability rights are essential for a fair and just world … and the United States wants to be a leader in protecting those ideals.

From the Regina Leader-Post, CanWest news service:

Michael Kirby, head of Canada’s Mental Health Commission, says the nation has made “the streets and the prisons the asylums of the 21st century” by closing institutions and then failing to provide community supports.

Kirby, a former senator who has a sister with severe depression, said he is fighting to reverse the overwhelming homelessness and stigma faced by people with mental illness.

When people were institutionalized, Kirby says, those with mental illness at least got three meals a day and a roof over their heads. Today, across the nation, there’s a lack of affordable, supportive housing for those who are mentally ill.

One in five Canadians experiences some form of mental or emotional health problem every year. Two-thirds will not seek treatment because they fear they will be labelled and viewed as dangerous, studies have suggested.

Can identify any of 15,000 known genetic disorders, researchers say

From the [UK] Times, [UK] Telegraph, BBC News:

A universal test to check embryos for almost any genetic condition could be available in the UK within a year, British researchers say. Clinical trials are expected to start within months.

Researchers say the £2,500 procedure, called karyomapping, can be used to quickly identify embryos with inherited illnesses like cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy, among an estimated 15,000 known genetic disorders. They believe it has the potential to eventually eradicate some inherited conditions like Huntington’s Disease, and to look for genetic causes of autism.

Critics say the procedure sparks fears that parents will selectively terminate fetuses with non-serious conditions, but scientists say its use would be heavily regulated in Britain and limited to serious diseases. In theory, the process could be used to select for particular characteristics like height and hair color.

“We’re not mad Frankensteins working away in our labs creating designer babies. We can only look for major disorders,” said Prof. Tony Rutherford, chairman of the British Fertility Centre.

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From the BBC:

Older mothers and those who have complications during pregnancy may have an increased risk of having a child with autism, according to a review by Harvard researchers published in the British Journal of Psychiatry (subscription required).

In a review of 40 autism studies, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that gestational diabetes, which affects four in 100 pregnancies, was associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of autism. Bleeding in pregnancy was found to carry an 81 percent increased risk.

The researchers also found a risk that was 27 percent higher for mothers aged between 30 and 34, compared with those five years younger, and over 100 percent higher for those over 40 compared to those under 30. For fathers, the risk of having a child with autism increased nearly 4 percent every five years.