Comprehensive Protection Needed for Individuals with Profound Developmental Disabilities at Risk of Abuse and Neglect

Maltreatment of individuals who are profoundly developmentally disabled is a problem that occurs across many settings and is investigated by human service workers and others. The prevalence [the total number of people who have experienced maltreatment in a specified time period] and incidence [the ...

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Autistic and Seeking a Place in an Adult World

An excellent article in today's New York Times about the challenges and promises decades of special education have delivered for autistic children. People with autism, whose unusual behaviors are believed to stem from variations in early brain development, typically disappear from public view after they leave school. As few as one in 10 hold even part-time jobs. Some live in state-supported group homes; even those who attend college often end up unemployed and isolated, living with parents. But Justin is among the first generation of autistic youths who have benefited ...

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NY’s $1.4 million per disabled child = death and despair

Today's NYTimes has an excellent article about the horrors in New York's residential care system for the developmentally disabled. Despite spending as much as $1.4 million per resident, the "system" has failed most of its residents with sub-standard care, abuse and death. These institutions spend two and a half times as much money, per resident, as the thousands of smaller group homes that care for far more of the 135,000 developmentally disabled New Yorkers receiving services. But the institutions are hardly a model: Those who run them have tolerated physical and ...

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Constitution Cannot Keep Special Ed Students in School

In a recent little noticed unpublished First Circuit decision, former USSC Justice Souter held that "whatever the scope of a school’s responsibility towards its students . . . there is no apparent constitutional obligation to impose physical restraint upon teenagers not at immediate risk of harm to themselves or others." This case was brought by mothers of teenagers who were not physically restrained by school officials from leaving their schools during instructional hours. The mothers brought action under state law as well as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and § 1988 seeking ...

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XOb (USSC Decision: Forest Grove v. T.A.)

USSC Update - IDEA permits reimbursement for private sped services even though child never attended public school Link

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XOb (Section 504, the ADA and the IDEA)

US Dept of Ed releases new guidance on interrelationship between Section 504, the ADA, and the IDEA Link

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An Ode to Autism – Successful Student Teaches a Lesson

Finally some good news for a change. Last year one of my long-time clients graduated from high school and received a national award for this essay. I've been holding it for just a time like this, when we all need something positive. It's one of the best things I've read on the risks and rewards experienced by children with disabilities: It changed me. I finally felt that someone “got me.” I wasn’t an alien just because I have autism. I am so much more than my autism: I’m an artist, I’m a musician, I’m a student and I’m a ...

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