From the [Willmar, Minnesota] West Central Tribune, AP/St. Paul Pioneer Press:

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing a Minnesota special education teacher of mistreating an elementary school student with disabilities through the use of excessive physical restraints and a locked timeout room. The court found that the actions were reasonable, and were not a substantial departure from accepted professional practice.

An earlier investigation by the Minnesota Department of Education found numerous violations of state and federal special education laws in the teacher’s treatment of the student and in her documentation of incidents in her classroom.

A lawyer for Jackie Nelson, the girl’s mother, said she plans to file an appeal.

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Peter V. Berns says the portrayal of a person with an intellectual disability in the film “Tropic Thunder” is offensive and shouldn’t be tolerated.

He says the use of the word “retard” and other insulting language in the film could spark abuse, bullying and violence against people with intellectual disabilities. An excerpt:

The oppressive power of these words has deep resonance for individuals with intellectual disabilities and for the disability rights movement. In the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, the use of the R-word in this film represents a serious setback. The portrayal of this character sends a clear message to the audience that the lives of people with intellectual disabilities are worth less and that it is acceptable to degrade and dehumanise them.

The history of people with intellectual disabilities in the U.S. evokes a dark time when these individuals suffered institutionalization, forced sterilization, segregation and other abuses. While the U.S. has made monumental strides toward including people with disabilities in the community, further progress will only be made if we speak out against bigotry, mistreatment and disrespect wherever we see it.

… We invite our colleagues in the disability rights movement, worldwide, to stand together and work to educate, inform and inspire people of conscience. Critics may try to dismiss our criticism as just some kind of politically correct talk, but that rejoinder is far too simplistic in the face of the suffering people with intellectual disabilities have experienced in their lives and throughout history. Individuals with disabilities should enjoy human rights on an equal basis with others without stigmatization, discrimination or prejudice. It is they who define themselves.

Peter V. Berns is the executive director of The Arc of the United States, the world’s largest community-based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

From the New York Times:

Pediatrician Melvin D. Levine, author of the bestseller “A Mind at a Time” and other books about children with learning disabilities, has been accused of sexually abusing boys in his care. While there are no criminal charges against Levine, left, five lawsuits have been brought and accusations have been made on behalf of another 43 male patients.

Dr. Levine vehemently denies both the accusations and ever sexually touching a patient. He declined to be interviewed for the Times article, which recounts the chronology of the accusations and interviews an accuser who asks that his name not be published.

By Alan Judd and Andy Miller in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Federal regulators declared patients at Georgia Regional Hospital/Atlanta to be in “immediate jeopardy” of physical harm after the hospital failed another recent inspection. The action followed the state’s recent implementation of a $3.4 million “turnaround” plan that was supposed to address persistently dangerous conditions.

The federal government gave the state three weeks to submit another plan to correct violations of patient-care standards. Georgia risks losing millions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid funds if appropriate improvements are not made.

See earlier posts here and here.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Because of abuse, genetic issues and a lack of prenatal care, adoptive children are much more likely to struggle with learning disabilities, prompting their families to leave public schools in search of the extra help offered by often costly specialty schools.

While adoptive children account for 1 percent to 2 percent of the population, higher rates can be found in almost every mental health setting, including residential facilities and public school special education programs.

Educators at some private schools say they have found adoption rates 20 times what would be expected in a typical classroom.

From the [London] Telegraph, [UK] Guardian, [UK] Independent:

Patients are being ignored and their conditions left undiagnosed or untreated because some parts of the National Health Service see only their disability and not their illness, the results of a year-long inquiry ordered by the [UK] government concluded.

The inquiry was ordered after the UK charity Mencap reported on a number of people with intellectual disabilities who reportedly died as the result of inadequate care.

Twenty-six-year-old Emma Kemp was denied treatment for cancer, her family claimed, because doctors considered her “uncooperative.” A 43-year-old man with a stroke went without food in a hospital for 26 days because he could not speak up for himself. Both people died.

The government inquiry reported that these cases were “not isolated incidents.” It recommended that medical staff should receive extra training on how to treat people with disabilities.

Sir Jonathan Michael, who chaired the inquiry, said:

“It was shocking to find that the experiences in the Mencap report were not isolated. People with learning disabilities have worse health and find it harder to access services than the rest of the population. They experience unnecessary suffering and deaths are occurring that could have been prevented. Staff are doing their best but the service is not making the reasonable adjustments [to meet the needs of people with learning disabilities] that the law requires.”

From the [UK] Independent:

Advocates and officials held urgent talks in London last week to discuss the forced marriages of people with learning disabilities to foreigners seeking passports.

The Foreign Office’s Forced Marriage Unit dealt with more than 80 cases of forced marriages involving people with learning disabilities last year, amounting to more than one in five of the total cases reported to the government. Experts fear the true scale of the problem is far worse.

Support groups attribute these forced marriages to the stigma of disability in some ethnic communities, the social and cultural isolation of people with disabilities, the fear of aging parents that their vulnerable children will not be cared for, and the view that people with disabilities are commodities.

Rape, domestic violence and abandonment are common consequences of such marriages, according to support groups.