From the [Minneapolis-St. Paul] Star Tribune:

Vicky Solomonson, a young woman whose family rejected doctors’ recommendations that she be institutionalized following a diagnosis of Down syndrome, has died. She was credited with advancing disability rights through the work of her grandfather, Minnesota senator and then Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey.

Solomonson, 49, had also been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in recent years. Her parents, Bruce and Nancy Solomonson, raised her at home with the help of her grandparents.

“We refused to hide Vicky out of sight in the attic,” grandmother Muriel Humphrey told “This Week” magazine in 1968.

(Star Tribune photo)

From the BBC, Washington Post, Miami Herald:

Monica & David, a documentary about the romance and marriage of two young adults with Down syndrome, has won the top documentary prize at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival.

The film was directed by the female subject’s cousin, Miami’s Alexandra Codina, and was chosen from among 30 documentaries to receive a $25,000 prize.  It is scheduled to premiere on HBO in October.

From the jury’s statement:

“Monica & David takes an incredibly intimate situation and beautifully translates it in a way that makes you think about your own life. It’s a clear and observant look at a family and the purity of love, fueled by an organic sense of the sadness, joy and everyday humor that fill this epic journey that is life.”

An excerpt from the festival’s program notes:

… an intimate, year-in-the-life portrait of two childlike spirits with adult desires as they prepare for their fairy tale wedding and face the realities of married life afterward. Taking immense pride in their new roles as husband and wife, David wants to bring home the bacon, and Monica wants to fry it in the pan. They want babies of their own. But their unique circumstances still have them living with Monica’s mother and husband. How will this unique family face its challenges and move forward?

… along with their story is one of two different mothers who sacrificed and struggled against an intolerant world to provide for their children.

The official trailer is here.

In this week’s episode of Fox’s ‘Glee’, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch)  instructs her Cheerios squad on the preferred method for losing weight: Bulimia. Here’s the dialogue from her scene with Cheerio Becky Jackson (played by actress Lauren Potter, who has Down syndrome).

Becky (standing on a scale): I lost two pounds, coach.

Sue: Well, Becky, you are assimilating beautifully. Instead of being different and an outcast, you’re just like every other teenage girl in America: sadly obsessed with vanity. Hey, before you know it, you’ll be leaving little baggies of upchuck in your parents’ linen closet.  Congrats. I’m proud of you, kid.

Becky: Thanks, coach.

From Politico.com:

Three young adults with intellectual disabilities are working as interns in Congress, courtesy of a new pilot program affiliated with Mason LIFE, a post-secondary program for adults with intellectual disabilities at George Mason University.

While the internships don’t guarantee future paid employment, organizers are hopeful that the office experience and self-confidence the students gain will give their resumes a welcome boost.

Mississippi Republican Rep. Gregg Harper, whose son has Fragile X syndrome, reached out to Mason LIFE to get the internship program started.

“After dealing with these issues for 20-plus years, that’s kind of where our heart is,” Harper said. “A lot of times, when you get out of high school and you’re dealing with intellectual disabilities, you fall off the educational face of the Earth. Sometimes you’re looking to give hope to some of these families who want their child to continue on.”

From WSAV TV, Savannah:

A nine-year-old Georgia girl has been closed out of participating in her local Special Olympics because the scheduling of the events clashed with her school schedule. Reagan Argo-Wilbanks, who has Down syndrome, is included in general education classes in the Liberty County School System.

“Because she has classroom subjects with regular students, instead of in all special education, she would miss too much academic instruction to participate,” [the girl's mother] said school officials told her.

Reagan meets Georgia Special Olympics rules, but each county is allowed to run their own games.

“You can’t call it the Special Olympics if you’re adding extra rules to discriminate against kids that would be allowed to participate,” said her mother.

The school district declined to comment.

(Photo from WSAV-TV)

From the Miami Herald:

A Florida doctor has had his license revoked after botching an abortion in a twin pregnancy. Asked to abort a fetus with Down syndrome, Dr. Matthew J. Kachinas mistakenly terminated the twin fetus that did not have the genetic anomaly.

Immediately after the hearing by the Florida Board of Medicine, the physician said he intended to kill himself and was involuntarily hospitalized.

The couple involved, who were not named, had become pregnant through in vitro fertilization using an egg donor. They aborted the remaining fetus the week after Kachinas terminated the first one at 15 weeks’ gestation.

From the [Allentown, PA] Daily Call, with video:

Twenty-one-year-old Cameron Bell is among thousands of students with disabilities who will lose their minimum-wage jobs when they leave high school this year. Cameron, who has Down syndrome, has reached the maximum schooling age for special education students.

Experts say the economic downturn and the shifting offshore of low-wage jobs are placing new, daunting barriers before this group, who traditionally have a harder time getting jobs than do their peers without disabilities.

”It’s a struggle,” said Marcie Hrycyszyn, Cameron’s teacher and the school-to-work coordinator [for the Bethlehem Area School District.] ”Mailroom jobs were always plentiful for my students. But they are now being taken by people who have been laid off or college grads.”

A report from Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute finds that only 16.8 percent of Americans with disabilities are employed, down from a high of 28.8 percent in 1989.

Earlier post here.