International singing sensation

From the [UK] Mirror, [UK] Times, CBS News and elsewhere:

By now, just about everybody has heard about Susan Boyle, the plain Scottish spinster whose extraordinary singing voice dumfounded the judges of a British talent show this week. Videos of her thrilling performance on “Britain’s Got Talent” have gotten more than 18 million views on Youtube, and she is already reportedly in talks with a record label.

But what many may not know is that Boyle, an unemployed church worker who cared for her elderly mother until her death two years ago, has a lifelong history of disability. Boyle says she has learning disabilities, the result of oxygen deprivation at birth, and was bullied in school because she was slow and had frizzy hair.

“The ones who made fun of me are now nice to me,” she told CBS News, “so I may have won them round.” She said she hopes her arresting debut on the TV talent show will remind people not to judge by appearances.

(Photo from the [UK] Times)

See also: It wasn’t singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ so much as our reaction to her — Tanya Gold in the [UK] Guardian

UPDATE: From Deadine Scotland:

[Boyle] says she hopes the show will highlight her disability too.  She said, “I was slightly brain damaged at birth, and I want people like me to see that they shouldn’t let a disability get in the way. I want to raise awareness — I want to turn my disability into ability.”

From U.S. News & World Report:

As children with autism are growing up and looking to the future, innovative programs are popping up around the country to help them move from high school to adult life.

The aim: give them the chance to go to work, go to college, or even start a business rather than collecting disability benefits and being limited to a sheltered workshop.

Some options include:

• “Supportive and Customized Employment,” in which school systems and state vocational rehabilitation programs work together to help teenagers move into the workforce while still in high school.
• “Employment First” programs which help shift the priorities of social service agencies so that the first step is placing people in a paid job in a regular workplace rather than collecting disability benefits.
• Resource ownership, in which job-training funds and Social Security work incentives are used to buy tools or equipment that a person with a disability will then use on the job.
• Small business ownership.

See also:

How 1 Autistic Young Man Runs a Business — U.S. News and World Report. A young man with autism and Down syndrome runs Poppin’ Joe’s Kettle Korn in Louisburg, Kan., with the help of his parents and five part-time employees.

(U.S. News & World Report photo)

From the Contra Costa [CA] Times:

Chelsea Werner, 17, who has Down syndrome, has achieved competitive status as a gymnast and performs as a junior-varsity cheerleader at San Ramon Valley High in Danville, California. An excerpt:

Chelsea gets no special treatment from her coaches. She’s at practice in Livermore four hours a day, three days a week. She’s at a Level Five in competition, a competitive category that some girls never reach, said Kathryn Alson, who also coaches Chelsea.

“It’s a very unusual occurrence,” said Tracy Trotter, who has worked with about 100 children with Down syndrome in 30 years as a pediatrician. “I think she’s the only one at this level.”

He said he uses Chelsea as an example to other patients of how having a disability doesn’t have to stop a child from being a kid.

(Contra Costa Times photo)

From the New York Times:

Tiffara Steward of Elmont, N.Y., seems an unlikely college basketball player.

At 20, she’s only 4-foot-6 and 90 pounds. She has hearing loss, scoliosis, and no vision in one eye. One of her legs is shorter than the other.

Yet Steward is a starter and a co-captain of the Farmingdale State Rams on Long Island, a team that made it to championship play.  An excerpt:

For a miracle that makes Syracuse-UConn look like a backyard barbecue, consider Steward’s career, which is most remarkable for what has been taken for granted.

“When she was first born, I said to my mother, ‘I never touched drugs, I never touched alcohol – how could God give me a child with so many disabilities?’ ” recalled her mother, Vanessa Jones-Steward. “And she said, ‘God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle,’ and since then, that’s how we’ve looked at things. We never thought of her as disabled; we never said there was something she couldn’t do. And once she started to play sports, we’ve never thought she was any different than anyone else.”

(New York Times photo)

Runner and teammates are ‘a sight to behold’

By Bill Plaschke in the Los Angeles Times:

Alyssa Rossi, a senior at Simi Valley Royal High,  competes on the track team with the help of teammates like Nicole Todd (with her at left). An excerpt:

In Simi Valley, across a grassy field in the lengthening shadow of nearby hills, they ran together.

Two girls, side by side, stride for stride, connected by the stretched cotton of a gray belt and the giant arms of innocence.

One girl is blind.

The other girl is teaching the rest of us to see.

Coach Jay Sramek had dismissed an autistic runner from one of his teams years ago because of liability concerns. He at first turned Rossi away, but changed his mind when he saw her singing in church.

(Los Angeles Times photo)

From the New York Times:

John Bramblitt, who has epilepsy and has gradually lost his vision, says he found independence and confidence through painting after he became completely blind in 2001.

Bramblitt’s painting have the appearance of “hazy daydreams.” He says he distinguishes shapes and colors on the canvas by the feel of the texture and viscosity of the oil paint he uses.

“It wasn’t until I lost my sight that I became brave enough to fail,” he said. “Even if the paintings didn’t look good, I didn’t have to see them.”

… Along with this success has come quiet confidence and acceptance. “I don’t think of myself as being a blind person or an epileptic,” Bramblitt said. “It’s just another aspect of who I am.”

(New York Times photo)

Story by Leslie Albrecht, McClatchy Newspapers, in the Orange County Register and the Modesto Bee:

Rebeka Willett of Modesto, California, defied naysayers when she started college this year. Rebeka’s mother, Tammy Willett, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. Her father, Clarence, has mild developmental disabilities.

A public health nurse once told the Willetts to give Rebeka up for adoption, saying that she would never learn to talk because her mother couldn’t talk.

This year Rebeka more than proved the critics wrong. She graduated –- on time –- from Grace Davis High School in Modesto. Now she’s studying to be a preschool teacher. If Tammy Willett could track down that public health nurse today, she would say, “You didn’t think I could do it? Look at us now!”

Rebeka says her experiences have made her more mature than others her age; she says she’s learned a lot from her mother.

“She’s taught me how to express myself for who I am and not try to be somebody else … I feel that she’s the most wonderful, smartest woman that I’ve ever known in my life, I wouldn’t trade her for any other mother, or any other person in the world.”

(Willett family, McClatchy photo)