Disability is Natural Free Press

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THUMBS DOWN TO PITY - A Winner!

You might have heard the news, but if not, Thumbs Down to Pity, the film my 19-year-old son, Benjamin, submitted to the www.filmyourissue.com initiative was one of the five winners! Benjamin wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Thumbs Down to Pity---a passionate message recommending the end of stereotypical "pity portrayals" of people with disabilities in Hollywood productions. Thanks to everyone who supported Benjamin's efforts! Click here to see the film and learn how you can order a copy (at cost) for yourself. The linked page also features details and pictures of Benjamin's grand adventure while in New York City to accept his award at the United Nations. Great things are possible for people with disabilities!

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Back-to-School Sale

It's almost that time again! In anticipation of the new school year, we invite you to enjoy $5.00 savings on Disability is Natural: Revolutionary Common Sense for Raising Successful Children with Disabilities. This extraordinary how-to handbook provides in-depth strategies on inclusive education---and much more---to ensure children with disabilities lead the successful lives they deserve! Service providers, therapists, and others in the field are also finding a gold mine of information that can lead to wonderful lives for children with disabilities and their families. Order today---the sale price is for a limited time only!

Visit the Disability is Natural Online Store to learn more about the Disability is Natural book and the companion video/DVD and poster. While you're there, check out all the different posters, as well as tees, totes, sweats, bumper stickers, note cards, and other bright and colorful products that promote positive perspectives on disability. Take a look at the laminated bookmarks, too---a great way to share new attitudes with teachers, students, staff, family members, and others. And they're priced right, too---only $1.00 each or ten for $8.00.

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Featured Article: Mixed Messages

Copyright 2006, Kathie Snow, www.disabilityisnatural.com

If you wanted your child to acquire positive social skills, self-respect, and other beneficial traits, while making new friends, you might enroll her in school or community sports, church groups, or similar activities. This action on your part would send your child a strong message about your expectations for her and your belief in her abilities. In addition, you would probably do everything possible to keep your child away from others who are "troublemakers." These efforts would also send a powerful message to your child---that you don't want her to adopt "troublemaking" traits.

It seems we recognize the power of peer group influence in general society, but it also seems we fail to recognize this power in the lives of people with disabilities. The results of this failure are mixed messages and less-than-desirable outcomes for children and adults with disabilities.

For example, a preschooler with a disability is not yet talking. Under today's Conventional Wisdom, this child is enrolled in a special ed preschool, where he's surrounded by other children with speech disabilities. What will he learn from this peer group where not talking, unintelligible speech, and/or grunts and screeches are common? What about students who are put in "emotional disorder classrooms" or children with autism who are placed in "autism classrooms"? How confusing this must be to a child, when the message he receives is: "We don't want you to head-bang, hand-bite, perseverate, or have other inappropriate behaviors, but we're going to put you in a class where these are the norm."

Be careful whom you associate with. It is human to imitate the habits of those with whom we interact... One of the best ways to elevate your character is to find worthy role models to emulate. Epictetus

Yes, we can hope children will learn from the adult "experts" in the class, but as many of us have learned, children want to please and be like their peers, not grownups. In The Nurture Assumption, author and child development expert Judith Rich Harris writes, "Socialization is not something that grownups do to kids---it is something kids do to themselves." And one way we "self-socialize" is to mimic our peers. Similar situations exist for adults with disabilities: those in the aberrant environments of segregated residential or day programs learn that aberrant behavior is the norm, even as staff tries to eliminate such behavior!

In the mid-1800s, "special (segregated) schools" for children and young adults with disabilities represented best practices. But one of the early promoters of these schools, Samuel Gridley Howe, soon recognized their dangers. In 1866, Howe gave the keynote address at the opening of a new institution and shocked the audience by warning about the dangers of segregation:

We should be cautious about establishing such artificial communities...for any children and youth; but more especially should we avoid them for those who have natural infirmity...Such persons spring up sporadically in the community, and they should be kept diffused among sound and normal persons...Surround insane and excitable persons with sane people and ordinary influences; vicious children with virtuous people and virtuous influences; blind children with those who see; mute children with those who speak; and the like...

[Howe, S.G. (1866) In "Ceremonies on laying the cornerstone of the New York State Institution for the Blind at Batavia," Genes Co., NY: Henry Todd]

Why haven't we learned much from the wisdom of the Ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus (see box), Samuel Gridley Howe in the more recent past, or Judith Rich Harris, today? When will we eliminate harmful, artificial environments? Where is our common sense? And how many more mixed messages will we send to the people we care about?

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Copyright 2006 Kathie Snow, www.disabilityisnatural.com. If you'd like the handout version (PDF) of this article, click here. You may share and/or distribute this E-Newsletter or the PDF version of this article (in their entirety and unedited) to other individuals and list serves (non-commercial use only). As a courtesy, please let me know how/when you use it - kathie@disabilityisnatural.com. Do not violate copyright laws---request permission before republishing this article in newsletters, on websites, in chat rooms, etc.

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Revolutionary Common Sense Articles

The Revolutionary Common Sense page at www.disabilityisnatural.com includes a variety of thought-provoking articles! Brief descriptions are below; click on the title links to read each article. And with the new school year just around the corner, several articles focus on education, while others provide innovative strategies that can be helpful to anyone interested in disability issues.

Inclusive Education: A Primer - What is inclusive education? Learn about one inclusive school where all children were valued, all belonged together, and all were learners. Inclusion is not as hard as you think! (The principal of this award-winning school is interviewed in the article below.)

Inclusive Education: A Principal's Perspective - This interview with a principal of an inclusive school details the nuts and bolts of creating an inclusive, caring school, and answers questions about costs, the use of paraprofessionals, teachers' roles, and much, much more. It's must-reading for administrators, teachers, and parents!

New and Improved IEP* Meetings (*and Any Other "I" Meetings) - IEP meetings---and "I" meetings for adults---don't have to be tension-filled, frustrating events! Let's make positive changes to these meetings, and stay focused on the person instead of our egos, who wins/loses, and more!

Special Ed Preschools: Help or Hindrance? - Conventional wisdom dictates placing young children with disabilities in special ed preschools. But are there unintended negative consequences we haven't explored, and don't young children with disabilities deserve more than segregation?

The Dental Patient - In this insightful article, the director of a human services agency deeply ponders the relationship between people with disabilities and the service system, and asks some important questions for us to consider. This is an eye-opening article for those who provide services and those who receive services!

Take a Walk in Their Shoes - What can happen when we learn as much as we can about what a person with a disability is going through? And are the services provided really right for a person or are we simply "following the rules"?

When Less is More - Many of us work very hard to provide lots of help to children and adults with disabilities. In the process, however, many individuals acquire another disability: "learned helplessness." Less help really can have a greater positive impact than more! (See the "Ask" article below for more on this important issue.)

Ask...and You Shall Receive - All of us need help. People without disabilities usually ask for help from a variety of sources, but people with disabilities are supposed to get help only from "professionals." This can limit opportunities for inclusion and real lives in the community! But extraordinary outcomes are possible when children and adults learn to ask for help from anyone!

Independence Day - Our nation was founded on this priceless concept: "...all [people] are created equal, [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." But do these words truly apply to the lives of individuals with disabilities?

What Will It Take? - Are you tired of not getting what you want and need? If so, it's time to become a negotiator, and eliminate arguing, nagging, threats, and more! What will it take for you to check out this article?

The Case Against "Special Needs" - Like other words in Disability World, this term is so commonly used we seldom think about what it means. Have you considered that it promotes pity, negative attitudes, and segregation? It's time to throw this descriptor into the junk heap!

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Good News to Share and Points to Ponder

• Students from the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity have been working hard to make the Shoal Creek trail in Austin, Texas more accessible for people with disabilities, according to an Internet story ("Students smoothing the way for people with disabilities") from the American-Statesman newspaper. The students are part of a Build America team, a subsidiary program of Push America, which was established by the national fraternity in 1977. Visit www.pushamerica.org to learn more about the fraternity's efforts to improve accessibility across the U.S.

• What's the status of public education in your state? Check out www.edweek.org/rc/edcounts to research a variety of different educational statistics where you live. Graduation rates and diploma policies can be found at www.edweek.org/dc06.

• The words of an insightful mother can be illuminating and thought-provoking, if we pause and ponder. "Ellen" writes:

"Ethan," my three-year-old son, has just been given a diagnosis of pervasive developmental delay (PDD). He's smart, affectionate, fairly social, does imaginary play, and he's been doing great in the neighborhood preschool. Yet, according to the doctor who gave him the diagnosis, Ethan "...wouldn't make eye contact, his play is too rigid, and he echoes speech..." If Ethan really is "echoing speech," does this mean I've been imagining all the normal conversations we have with our son? The doctor says his speech is "irrelevant and out of context." To us, Ethan---at age three---just doesn't yet have all the words he needs to express what he wants to say. Is Ethan's "lack of eye contact" when meeting with a strange adult (the doctor) an indicator of PDD or simply a sign of his shyness? Who's right? Can I shrink all I know to be true about my child for the last three years into what someone new observed in an hour?

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Thanks for your interest in new ways of thinking! Feel free to print and share this E-Newsletter and/or forward to other individuals and list serves (non-commercial only). But, as mentioned previously, please request permission before reproducing any portion of this E-newsletter in another newsletter or other publication, on websites, in chat rooms, etc.

Also, please contact us with your comments and ideas about this E-Newsletter, the Disability is Natural website, or anything else of interest. If you received this E-Newsletter from a friend and would like to subscribe, visit www.disabilityisnatural.com and sign up at the bottom of any page, or send an Email to kathie@disabilityisnatural.com with your request.

And thanks for all you do to create an inclusive society where everyone belongs!