From The Independent:

Students with learning disabilities in the UK have traditionally faced extremely limited job opportunities, but colleges are now working to change that. Orchard Hill College, a non-residential school for students with complex needs, deliberately moved to a more urban location in Surrey to get higher visibility for its students.

At first, some of the locals were a bit freaked out, admits Principal Caroline Allen. “It’s interesting because people now often tell us our students are ‘not as disabled’ as they thought. I think they probably are, but their preconceptions about how much people with disabilities can contribute were rather narrow.”

… There’s still a long way to go, believes Hugh Williams, director of education at Linkage College. “You still get people with learning disabilities put into stereotypical work like stacking shelves in supermarkets, but things are changing.”

Other schools are working at strengthening social skills, improving access to technology, involving students in the community, and facilitating work placement.

From the New York Times, a review by Andy Webster of “Heavy Load,” a documentary about a British garage-punk band that is composed mainly of people with learning disabilities. The film doesn’t specify the nature of the disabilities, Webster says, but one band member has Down syndrome.

Depicted in the film is the band’s Stay up Late Campaign, which encourages people with disabilities to challenge the curfew system so they can choose the lives they want to be living.

An opening intertitle announces “A film about happiness.” Oh, please. It’s about struggle, the efforts of an ensemble wrestling with artistic obstacles as well as biological ones. It’s also a portrait of British band life: playing in smoky pubs and studios and at outdoor concerts and hustling tracks to a music publisher. And it is a portrait of a nation with social services and a public so compassionate it makes our own look heartless.

Other reviews:

(more…)

From The Bellevue [Washington] Reporter:

Four students with developmental disabilities have graduated from Bellevue Community College’s Venture Program, becoming the first to earn associate degrees in occupational and life skills (AOLS) for completing the program’s 90-credit, college-level curriculum.

The accredited AOLS degree is described as the first and only one of its kind in the nation for students with learning, cognitive and intellectual disabilities. The program is designed to integrate academic, workplace, social, and life skills to better prepare students for independence and employment. There are currently 53 students enrolled, and a staff of eight teachers.

(BCC Venture Program photo)

From the BBC, Sunderland [UK] Echo:

Britain’s Court of Appeal reduced the sentences yesterday for a man and two youths who were jailed for life this spring for killing a man with learning disabilities.

William Hughes, 22, Marcus Miller, 16, and Stephen Bonallie, 17, had each been jailed for between 15 and 22 years in the death of Brent Martin (left), whom they kicked and stomped to death over a five-pound bet. In setting the original sentences, the judge called the act “sadistic conduct on an extremely vulnerable victim.” The appeals court reduced each of the sentences by up to three years.

Disability advocates renewed calls for a change in the law to address hate crimes against people with disabilities.

The ruling was “an unpleasant reminder of the low value often attached to disabled people’s lives in our society”, said Jon Sparkes of the disability group Scope. Martin’s mother, Brenda, called the decision “heartbreaking.”

Earlier posts:

• UK gang sentenced to life for murder of disabled man
• UK murder spurs calls to protect disabled from hate crime
• ‘We must protect disabled people from this wave of barbaric and hateful crimes’

From the [Sydney, Australia] Daily Telegraph (links below):

Australian television personality Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin (left), host of a popular rugby program on MSN’s national Channel Nine network, stirred controversy last week with disparaging on-air comments about a hotel bouncer he said was drunk. The family of bouncer Greg Stacey said he has speech and learning difficulties caused by a disability related to epilepsy.

The network offered an apology, and Vautin said he would never deliberately ridicule a person with a disability because he had an older brother with Down syndrome. Then, in an ironic twist, Vautin’s brother with Down syndrome, Geoffrey Vautin, died Monday night after a short illness.

Stacey’s family said they intend to seek legal action against the network.

Another broadcaster and former “Footy” host says the show habitually targets people with disabilities and alcohol problems as the butt of ridicule.

• Footy Show makes disabled drunk slur
• Footy Show ’seeks easy victims’
• Fatty’s Down Syndrome brother Geoffrey Vautin dies
• Bouncer’s family will still sue Fatty Vautin despite brother’s death

Lots of graduation stories with a disability angle this weekend. Here’s a sampling:

• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: First four students graduate from community college life skills program. The degree was designed especially for people with intellectual disabilities, with the goal of helping them become self-sufficient.
• The [Minneapolis-St. Paul] Star Tribune: A journey to better things (autism). Family celebrates the graduation of son with autism who was adopted from Romania.
• The New Hampshire Union Leader: John Clayton: From Special Olympics to autism studies at Yale. Valedictorian who volunteers at Special Olympics plans to attend Yale to study molecular biology and seek the root causes for autism.
• The [Cincinnati] Enquirer: Fitting in was hardest lesson (Asperger’s)
• The Miami Herald: Deaf high school students graduate with pride
• The St. Petersburg [Florida] Times: Student with Down syndrome a part of graduating class
• The Cape Cod Times: Riverview School honors 62 students (learning disabilities — photo above)
• The [Los Angeles] Daily News: Autistic graduates cap off a remarkable comeback

Other graduation stories here.

From USA Today:

Benjamin Bolger, who has dyslexia, just earned his first doctorate at Harvard to total eleven advanced degrees from universities including Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Oxford, and Cambridge, among others.

Bolger says he reads at an elementary school level. He has gotten through much of his education with the help of his mother, Loretta Bolger, who reads books out loud to him and types papers he dictates. He also uses books on tape and has learned to skim books very effectively.

… He says he works to raise awareness about dyslexia and inspire others to realize they can be successful in academia.

From The Chicago Tribune

As a deaf student in Chicago schools thirty-five years ago, Karen Alkoby felt frustrated and stigmatized, but American Sign Language (ASL) gave her a voice. Officials at DePaul University now say she has become the first deaf woman in U.S. history to attain a doctorate in computer science. Alkoby’s dissertation lays the groundwork for a computerized dictionary that may be able to translate written English into ASL, opening new doors to communication for the deaf.