When her now-adult daughter was born, Anne Ford writes at AOL.com, society’s answer to the problems of people with disabilities was to avoid acknowledging them.  That all began to change when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act twenty years ago, she says. In that moment,

… we as a country told our disabled citizens that they too belonged to our nation’s family, and that their skills, their talents and their lives were valued.

Disabilities came out of the shadows. People began to talk openly and understand, and most important, to accept. Today the idea of a person in a wheelchair stopping conversation and getting looks of disapproval for entering a restaurant is inconceivable.

As for learning disabilities, more and more young people with LD are successfully transitioning out of high school into the workplace or college because they have access to accommodations such as extra time for tests and note takers. Before the ADA, these accommodations did not exist.

… An estimated 15 million Americans have a learning disability, but thanks to the ADA, we have learned that with understanding and acceptance, with simple and usually inexpensive accommodations and with the protections afforded by the ADA, people with disabilities can succeed.

Author Anne Ford is the chairman of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. She has written three books about her journey as the mother of a daughter with learning disabilities.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 9:12 am and is filed under ADA, commentary, learning disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.