Special education costs have soared in local school districts during the past five years, driven by higher program costs, continued demand for those programs by parents, and cutbacks in state and federal aid.
A California judge has declared the furloughing of state Social Security Administration employees “arbitrary, capricious and unlawful” and ordered the state to stop the furloughs.
The number of workers claiming job discrimination based on disability, religion or national origin surged to new highs last year, as federal job bias complaints overall stayed at near-record levels.
Russell Hall and his wife, Eva, are saving the state of Kansas money — about $100,000 a year.
Hall removed his 30-year-old daughter, Tabatha, from Topeka’s Kansas Neurological Institute in 1991, and he and his wife have been caring for her in their home with the help of funds from a Home and Community-Based Services waiver for those with developmental disabilities.
The 150-square-foot room has all the comforts of home: a cozy bed, a bureau, a cluttered computer desk. Red Sox posters adorn the walls, and pet fish swim around in a glass tank. There is a private bathroom.
For me, this new year is as much about looking back as looking ahead. I turned 47 in the past year. That in itself is miraculous. I was born with a neurological nuisance called spinal muscular atrophy. It gradually, relentlessly weakens muscles.
The 47-year-old woman teaches mentally disabled children at Hebron Elementary School in Evansville. She has two sighted assistants who help with the boys and girls who range in ages from kindergarten to fifth grade.
Over the past several months, among my weekly disability articles were a number of articles about learning disabilities. While I usually get between three and four e-mails each week inquiring about the disability article of the previous week, apparently my articles on LD touched a number of chords. In fact, as I write this article today, I’ve received more than 50 different inquiries about various issues pertaining to LD.
AT 4 O’CLOCK each morning, Laura J. Sloate begins her daily reading. She calls a phone service that reads newspapers aloud in a synthetic voice, and she listens to The Wall Street Journal at 300 words a minute, which is nearly twice the average pace of speech. Later, an assistant reads The Financial Times to her while she uses her computer’s text-to-speech system to play The Economist aloud. She devotes one ear to the paper and the other to the magazine.