WASHINGTON — Embedded in sweeping health legislation passed by the House and being debated on the Senate floor is a major new federal insurance program for long-term care intended to help people like Anne M. Rader.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As the learning specialist working with the most academically challenged athletes at Florida State, Brenda Monk was confronted each year with recruits who would seem to have little chance of surviving on a college campus. Their deficiencies were laid out in transcripts and psycho-educational reports submitted during the admissions process.
A few weeks back I came across a story that really stood out. The story is a profile that was featured on ESPN’s newsmagazine “E:60” about a high school football player who is blind.
I was impressed with both the production values and the storytelling. The majority of the 10-minute story is told by the subject of the profile, Charlie Wilks, who also conducts most of the interviews for the piece. By the end of the story, I felt that I knew and understood who Charlie really was. On the field, his nickname is the beast because he shows no mercy and expects the same from his opponents.
The producers of the story do more “showing” than “telling” about the challenges Wilks faces and how he adapts. For example, they show Wilks using assistive technology, a BrailleNote, for the interviews he conducts. Wilks briefly explains how the technology works, but the storytelling isn’t bogged down with all the particulars. Instead, viewers can see him using it during interviews.
Significantly, it is Wilks – not his mother or grandfather or even a doctor — who explains how a brain tumor led to his blindness. This shows us more about Wilks as a person than about Wilks as a medical condition.
I was inspired by this story, not because I was told to be inspired, but because I was shown.
As a disabled veteran, Phil Sprinkle couldn’t directly serve in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, he put his skills as an Army-trained mechanic to use as a contractor, spending three deployments in Iraq repairing Stryker combat vehicles.
Many students enrolled at Fairfax County’s schools for the disabled cannot talk. But they greet their teachers every day, pressing a finger or a toe to a switch that prompts a recorded voice to say “Hello!” or “Good morning.”
Millions of Americans are waiting longer for unemployment checks, disability payments and food stamps as states furlough workers who process the benefits.
“I’m ready to go!” announced 6-year-old Parker Seward, one of the children who enjoyed a special holiday cruise on Sunday. Thanks to the Freedom Waters Foundation and Freedom Boat Club, he and about a dozen other excited children enjoyed pizza, drawing and a cruise at Bayfront Marina.
Just over one-quarter of U.S. adult health care spending was associated with disability in 2006, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
Prince George’s County residents and disability advocates are urging Maryland to put the brakes on budget cuts to programs and services for disabled individuals, saying the cuts are putting extreme hardships on individuals and families dependent on training, transportation and other services.