• TV’s split personality: Can Hollywood get mental illness portrayals right? - Newsweek
• Debate rages over treatment of autistic student - Connecticut Post
• Eight is enough - New York Times
• Mass. home care services face steep budget cuts-Cape Cod Times
• Vulnerable people are not getting the help they need — [UK] Guardian
• Customers speak up when clerk shortchanges blind person - ABC News
• Terror fears tougher on minorities, disabled - Washington Post
• ‘They’re amazingly funny, who doesn’t like midgets?’ - Newnan [GA] Times-Herald
• Cruises gaining in popularity with disabled travelers - Los Angeles Times
• Inside the mind of an autistic genius - [UK] Times
• She’s my sister: Local author describes adventures with Irene – [Salt Lake City] Deseret News

From Parade Magazine:

Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, says the upcoming Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise, Idaho, will feature some “unified teams,” in which athletes with and without intellectual disabilities will compete together.

Shriver believes that unified teams are the future of the Special Olympics. “Our roots are as a movement that allowed someone who’d been unfairly stigmatized to show what he could do as an athlete,” he points out. “Now it’s no longer entirely about him. It’s about us.”

Unified teams benefit all participants. “Despite the progress we’ve made, intellectually-challenged kids are still quite isolated,” explains Shriver. “It’s the shooting of baskets together or kicking a ball that changes things. When people say, ‘This is my teammate,’ then we’ve won.”

Writing in the [UK] Times, film director Ken Russell (Women in Love, Tommy) offers his admiration for a digital art installation by Simon Mckeown called Biodiverse: MotionDisabled.

Mckeown uses technology to create 3-D animations of performers who are living with conditions such as spina bifida, cerebral palsy, missing limbs, brittle bones and short stature. By converting the performers to robotic images, Mckeown allows audiences to examine their movements without “the impertinence of staring,” and to explore ideas of normality and difference.

… The result is brisk, captivating and oddly charming. These figures are now virtual 3-D avatars whose heroic superpowers are utilized in their daily tasks, such as writing with their feet, or pitching a phone from foot to shoulder like a football, or kickboxing using only a torso to balance.

(more…)

From National Public Radio:

A DVD developed by British researchers is successfully using trucks and trains to help children with autism decode human emotions.

Simon Baron-Cohen and a team of researchers from the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge have come up with a series of educational videos featuring animated vehicles called The Transporters, each with the face of a highly expressive actor.

A study found that children who watched the DVD for at least 15 minutes a day for a month became much more adept at recognizing facial expressions and the emotions behind them.

The original Transporters DVD was so successful in the U.K. that Baron-Cohen and his team released a new version this month using American voices. A quarter of the profits from American sales will go to autism charities.

With video. (Photo from NPR)

From the [Toronto] Globe and Mail:

Experts say as many as 50 percent of children with developmental disabilities may also have mental health issues like anxiety, depression or obsessiveness. But  the second conditions often go undiagnosed as kids have difficulty communicating with doctors.

Symptoms of mental health issues may also be mistakenly attributed to the developmental disability by doctors and loved ones.

“They’ll say it’s because of his developmental disability that he’s not interested in the world around him and prefers to sit and watch television all day,” says social worker Susan Morris, clinical director of the dual diagnosis program at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

From the Knoxville [TN] News Sentinel:

Because of advances in medical care, many people with Down syndrome are now expected to outlive their parents.

Parents like Scott and Teresa Boyer  of Knoxville, TN, would like their 29-year-old son Matt to live with them as long as possible, but worry about what the future may hold. Another son says he wants to assume the role of caregiver as his parents age.

Family care is the primary source of support for most people with disabilities, and it’s estimated that 700,000 people with developmental disabilities around the country are living with one or more parents over the age of 65.

The unfortunate fact is the shortage of independent living arrangements for those with mental disabilities.

“We’re only taking emergencies at this point,” says John Craven, director of the Knox County Division of the Tennessee Division of Mental Retardation Services. He says the waiting list for supported apartments for the mentally disabled is “thousands” long, and state funding is in short supply, with more budget cuts expected this year.

(Knoxville News Sentinel photo)

Editorial writers at the New York Times say home health care workers are prone to low pay and exploitation because outdated labor rules exempt their employers from federal standards governing overtime and minimum wage rates. Home health care is expected to be one of the nation’s fastest-growing occupations over the next decade, with an increase of 51 percent forecast.

An excerpt:

… It is unconscionable that workers who are entrusted with the care of some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens are themselves unprotected by basic labor standards.

It is also unwise, because poor pay for long hours leads to high turnover, which undermines the quality of care. Turnover also drives up the cost of providing home care – a needless drain on Medicaid, which pays for many home care services. And that is not the only way that poor quality home care jobs end up costing taxpayers. Nearly half of home care workers rely on food stamps or other public assistance, so taxpayers ultimately compensate for their low pay and inadequate benefits.