Disability Pride Month

In this illustrated biography collection, meet over twenty people with Down syndrome who have accomplished amazing things in their lives. Excelling in film, sports, business, photography, and more, these people are changing hearts and minds about their disability. Read about Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman Triathlon, and Isabella Springmuhl Tejada, the first designer with Down syndrome invited to showcase her work at London Fashion Week. Learn about the Special Olympics, Best Buddies, and other organizations who support the Down syndrome community. Each of these stories will educate and inspire young readers, both kids with Down syndrome and their family members, friends, classmates, and teammates! Included in this book: AC Heigel Alex Bourne Alex Lee Allison Fogarty Chris Nikic Christine Lau Geoffrey Mikol Grace Key Grace Strobel Isabella Springmuhdi Tejada Jamie Brewer Jared Kozak John Cronin John Tucker Karen Gaffney Kayla McKeon Madison Trevlin Meg Ohsada Michael Holton Nick Doyle Ronnie Brown Sofia Sanchez Tommy Jessop Yulissa Arescurenaga Zack Gottsagen Special Olympics Best Buddies National Down Syndrome Society The Buddy Walk

In Vibrant Mosaic, John B. Christiansen examines a variety of topics that are relevant to deaf and hard of hearing people through the lens of a deaf sociologist. The book explores the arts and sports, the intersections of various cultures within Deaf communities, work and rehabilitation, advocacy, telecommunications and technology, and the Deaf President Now protest. Written in a conversational tone, each chapter is thoughtfully framed by a narrative vignette, illustrating the lived experiences of individuals and serving as a gateway to a broader discussion. Christiansen invites readers to engage with the rich history and contributions of deaf and hard of hearing people and shows how they have shaped their communities and transformed broader societal structures. Vibrant Mosaic is a celebration of a dynamic, multifaceted mosaic and its enduring impact on the human experience.

This fully revised ninth edition continues to offer teachers practical advice on new evidence-based approaches for teaching and managing students with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, and difficulties. Based on topical international research from the field, this new edition provides practical advice for teachers and tutors to enable them to adapt evidence-based methods when working in inclusive settings with students with special needs, including gifted and talented students. Throughout the text, approaches to teaching and classroom management have been clearly described. New methods, programmes, and interventions are reviewed, and there is increased coverage of digital technology and e-learning. Teachers will also find support and guidance for working with students with learning difficulties in literacy and numeracy, teaching students with physical, sensory and intellectual disability, fostering students' autonomy, social skills interventions, approaches to autism spectrum disorders, and much more. All new information in every chapter is fully supported with reference to the most recent writing and research. This continues to be an invaluable resource for practising and trainee teachers, tutors, teaching assistants, and other education professionals responsible for supporting students in inclusive schools.

Bringing together a set of first-person accounts of physical education from the perspectives of disabled children and adults, this book puts disabled people's voices in the foreground. The book provides a rich set of case study material that deepens our understanding of the experiences of disabled people and challenges students, researchers, and practitioners to reflect critically upon their own positionality. The first part of the book discusses the ways in which disability has been conceptualized, how the voices of disabled people have sometimes been marginalized, and how nondisability power has historically framed the narratives of disabled people in physical education literature. It also discusses the innovative methods used in this book--such as storytelling through recorded conversations and drawings in addition to more traditional chapter writing--to empower disabled children and adults to act as authors of their own stories. Then the book presents the stories themselves in a variety of written, narrative, and alternative formats, a series of authentic accounts of the lived experiences of disabled people in physical education. Finally, the book concludes with the editors' final thoughts and reflections about this collection of stories that can be used in the classroom to foster dialogue and encourage critical thinking. Importantly, these prompts have been co-constructed between the editors and the disabled people themselves. This book is essential reading for any course in adapted physical education, physical education, or disability, for any pre- or in-service teacher, instructor, or coach working with disabled people, and for people who experience disability or their families with an interest in education, physical activity, or methods for elevating the voices of disabled people.

An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) In Disability Pride, disabled journalist Ben Mattlin weaves together interviews and reportage to introduce a cavalcade of individuals, ideas, and events in engaging, fast-paced prose. He traces the generation that came of age after the ADA reshaped America, and how it is influencing the future. He documents how autistic self-advocacy and the neurodiversity movement upended views of those whose brains work differently. He lifts the veil on a thriving disability culture-from social media to high fashion, Hollywood to Broadway-showing how the politics of beauty for those with marginalized body types and facial features is sparking widespread change. He also explores the movement's shortcomings, particularly the erasure of nonwhite and LGBTQIA+ people that helped give rise to Disability Justice. He delves into systemic ableism in health care, the right-to-die movement, institutionalization, and the scourge of subminimum-wage labor that some call legalized slavery. And he finds glimmers of hope in how disabled people never give up their fight for parity and fair play. Beautifully written, without anger or pity, Disability Pride is a revealing account of an often misunderstood movement and identity, an inclusive reexamination of society's treatment of those it deems different.

The first major behind-the-scenes account of the history, passage, and impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-the landmark moment for disability rights The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known. In this riveting account, acclaimed disability scholar Lennard J. Davis delivers the first on-the-ground narrative of how a band of leftist Berkeley hippies managed to make an alliance with upper-crust, conservative Republicans to bring about a truly bipartisan bill. Based on extensive interviews with all the major players involved including legislators and activists, Davis recreates the dramatic tension of a story that is anything but a dry account of bills and speeches. Rather, it's filled with one indefatigable character after another, culminating in explosive moments when the hidden army of the disability community stages scenes like the iconic "Capitol Crawl" or an event when students stormed Gallaudet University demanding a "Deaf President Now!" From inside the offices of newly formed disability groups to secret breakfast meetings surreptitiously held outside the White House grounds, here we meet countless unsung characters, including political heavyweights and disability advocates on the front lines. "You want to fight?" an angered Ted Kennedy would shout in an upstairs room at the Capitol while negotiating the final details of the ADA. Congressman Tony Coelho, whose parents once thought him to be possessed by the devil because of his epilepsy, later became the bill's primary sponsor. There's Justin Dart, adorned in disability power buttons and his signature cowboy hat, who took to the road canvassing 50 states, and people like Patrisha Wright, also known as "The General," Arlene Myerson or "the brains," "architect" Bob Funk, and visionary Mary Lou Breslin, who left the hippie highlands of the West to pursue equal rights in the marble halls of DC.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 was intended to send a clear message to society that discrimination on the basis of disability is unacceptable. As with most civil rights laws, the courts were given primary responsibility for implementing disability rights policy.Mezey argues that the act has not fulfilled its potential primarily because of the judiciary's "disabling interpretations" in adjudicating ADA claims. In the decade of litigation following the enactment of the ADA, judicial interpretation of the law has largely constricted the parameters of disability rights and excluded large numbers of claimants from the reach of the law. The Supreme Court has not interpreted the act broadly, as was intended by Congress, and this method of decision making was for the most part mirrored by the courts below. The high court's rulings to expand state sovereign immunity and insulate states from liability in damage suits has also caused claimants to become enmeshed in litigation and has encouraged defendants to challenge other laws affecting disability rights. Despite the law's strong civil rights rhetoric, disability rights remain an imperfectly realized goal.

Signed into law in July 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became effective two years later, and court decisions about the law began to multiply in the middle of the decade. In The Disability Pendulum, Ruth Colker presents the first legislative history of the enactment of the ADA in Congress and analyzes the first decade of judicial decisions under the act. She assesses the success and failure of the first ten years of litigation under the ADA, focusing on its three major titles: employment, public entities, and public accommodations. The Disability Pendulum argues that despite an initial atmosphere of bipartisan support with the expectation that the ADA would make a significant difference in the lives of individuals with disabilities, judicial decisions have not been consistent with Congress' intentions. The courts have operated like a pendulum, at times swinging to a pro-disabled plaintiff and then back again to a pro-defendant stance. Colker, whose work on the ADA has been cited by the Supreme Court, offers insightful and practical suggestions on where to amend the act to make it more effective in defending disability rights, and also explains judicial hostility toward enforcing the act.

In this illustrated biography collection, meet over twenty people with Down syndrome who have accomplished amazing things in their lives. Excelling in film, sports, business, photography, and more, these people are changing hearts and minds about their disability. Read about Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman Triathlon, and Isabella Springmuhl Tejada, the first designer with Down syndrome invited to showcase her work at London Fashion Week. Learn about the Special Olympics, Best Buddies, and other organizations who support the Down syndrome community. Each of these stories will educate and inspire young readers, both kids with Down syndrome and their family members, friends, classmates, and teammates! Included in this book: AC Heigel Alex Bourne Alex Lee Allison Fogarty Chris Nikic Christine Lau Geoffrey Mikol Grace Key Grace Strobel Isabella Springmuhdi Tejada Jamie Brewer Jared Kozak John Cronin John Tucker Karen Gaffney Kayla McKeon Madison Trevlin Meg Ohsada Michael Holton Nick Doyle Ronnie Brown Sofia Sanchez Tommy Jessop Yulissa Arescurenaga Zack Gottsagen Special Olympics Best Buddies National Down Syndrome Society The Buddy Walk

In this warm, thought-provoking and often hilarious memoir, Lottie Jackson reflects on her experiences of living with disability: from the difficulties of going shopping on a mobility scooter, to the headache of defining oneself on a tick-box form, and from the indignities of the so-called easy-pull tights aid to the intense pleasure of finally swapping a hospital gown for a slinky dress. Lottie captivatingly expresses the acute difficulties and joys of living with disability, as well as the strange everyday occurrences that abled-bodied people usually don't experience.

Well-known disability activist and social media influencer Melissa Blake offers a frank, illuminating memoir and a call to action for disabled people and allies. In the summer of 2019, journalist Melissa Blake penned an op-ed for CNN Opinion. A conservative pundit caught wind of it, mentioning Blake's work in a YouTube video. What happened next is equal parts a searing view into society, how we collectively view and treat disabled people, and the making of an advocate. After a troll said that Blake should be banned from posting pictures of herself, she took to Twitter and defiantly posted three smiling selfies, all taken during a lovely vacation in the Big Apple: I wanted desperately to clap back at these vile trolls in a way that would make a statement, not only about how our society views disabilities, but also about the toxicity of our strict and unrealistic beauty standards. Of course I knew that posting those selfies wasn't going to erase the nasty names I'd been called and, the chances were, they would never even see my tweet, but that didn't matter. I wasn't doing it for them; I was doing it for me and every single disabled person who has been bullied before, online and in real life. When people mock how I look, they're not just insulting me. They're insulting all disabled people. We're constantly told that we're repulsive and ugly and not good enough to be seen. This was me pushing back against that toxic, ableist narrative. For the first time, I felt like I was doing something empowering, taking back my power and changing the story. Her tweet went viral, attracting worldwide media attention and interviews with the BBC, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, PEOPLE magazine, Good Morning America and E! News. Now, in her manifesto, Beautiful People, Blake shares her truths about disability, writing about (among other things): the language we use to describe disabled people ableism, microaggressions, and their pernicious effects what it's like to live in a society that not only isn't designed for you, but actively operates to render you invisible her struggles with self‑image and self‑acceptance the absence of disabled people in popular culture why disabled people aren't tragic heroes Blake also tells the stories of some of the heroes of the disability rights movement in America, in doing so rescuing their incredible achievements from near total obscurity. Highlighting other disabled activists and influencers, Blake's work is the calling card of a powerful voice--one that has sparked new, different, better conversations about disability.

A groundbreaking collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience- Disability Visibility brings together the voices of activists, authors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and everyday people whose daily lives are, in the words of playwright Neil Marcus, "an art . . . an ingenious way to live.". Edited by MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellow Alice Wong "Shares perspectives that are too often missing from such decision-making about accessibility."-The Washington Post According to the last census, one in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some are visible, some are hidden--but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together an urgent, galvanizing collection of personal essays by contemporary disabled writers.There is Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations," which describes her famous debate with Princeton philosopher Peter Singer over her own personhood. There is columnist s. e. smith's celebratory review of a work of theater by disabled performers. There are original pieces by up-and-coming authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma. There are blog posts, manifestos, eulogies, and testimonies to Congress. Taken together, this anthology gives a glimpse of the vast richness and complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own assumptions and understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and past with hope and love.

In this comprehensive and gorgeously illustrated book, Cathy Scott and Clay Myers show how service and therapy dogs are having a profound impact on the lives of military personnel injured in action. Not only do our veterans deal with physical injuries, but they often return with psychological issues that can be treated with help, companionship, and love from working canines. Through moving stories and color photographs, Unconditional Honor highlights the nearly forty-year history of working dogs helping wounded veterans, the mental and physical combat traumas that are mitigated by the dogs, the selection and training of the dogs, including rescued canines, and what the future holds. Featured in the book are inspiring personal accounts of what the dogs mean to veterans, and how their lives have been forever changed and even saved since adopting canines.      In addition to the remarkable healing journeys of wounded warriors and their canines, this book showcases the various groups, formed originally to train dogs for the blind and the physically disabled that now embrace military services, that provide, at no cost, returning troops with dogs to make them whole again after surviving the reality of war.

James Tanner may be the most famous person in nineteenth-century America that no one has heard of. During his service in the Union army, he lost the lower third of both his legs and afterward had to reinvent himself. After a brush with fame as the stenographer taking down testimony a few feet away from the dying President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Tanner eventually became one of the best-known men in Gilded Age America. He was a highly placed Republican operative, a popular Grand Army of the Republic speaker, an entrepreneur, and a celebrity. He earned fame and at least temporary fortune as "Corporal Tanner," but most Americans would simply have known him as "The Corporal." Yet virtually no one-not even historians of the Civil War and Gilded Age- knows him today. America's Corporal rectifies this startling gap in our understanding of the decades that followed the Civil War. Drawing on a variety of primary sources including memoirs, lectures, newspapers, pension files, veterans' organization records, poetry, and political cartoons, James Marten brings Tanner's life and character into focus and shows what it meant to be a veteran- especially a disabled veteran-in an era that at first worshipped the saviors of the Union but then found ambiguity in their political power and insistence on collecting ever-larger pensions. This biography serves as an examination of the dynamics of disability, the culture and politics of the Gilded Age, and the aftereffects of the Civil War, including the philosophical and psychological changes that it prompted. The book explores the sometimes corrupt, often gridlocked, but always entertaining politics of the era, from Tanner's days as tax collector in Brooklyn through his short-lived appointment as commissioner of pensions (one of the biggest jobs in the federal government of the 1880s). Marten provides a vivid case study of a classic Gilded Age entrepreneur who could never make enough money. America's Corporal is a reflection on the creation of celebrity-and of its ultimate failure to preserve the memory of a man who represented so many of the experiences and assumptions of the Gilded Age.

In 1976 Gelya Frank began writing about the life of Diane DeVries, a woman born with all the physical and mental equipment she would need to live in our society--except arms and legs. Frank was 28 years old, DeVries 26. This remarkable book--by turns moving, funny, and revelatory--records the relationship that developed between the women over the next twenty years. An empathic listener and participant in DeVries's life, and a scholar of the feminist and disability rights movements, Frank argues that Diane DeVries is a perfect example of an American woman coming of age in the second half of the twentieth century. By addressing the dynamics of power in ethnographic representation, Frank--anthropology's leading expert on life history and life story methods--lays the critical groundwork for a new genre, "cultural biography." Challenged to examine the cultural sources of her initial image of DeVries as limited and flawed, Frank discovers that DeVries is gutsy, buoyant, sexy--and definitely not a victim. While she analyzes the portrayal of women with disabilities in popular culture--from limbless circus performers to suicidal heroines on the TV news--Frank's encounters with DeVries lead her to come to terms with her own "invisible disabilities" motivating the study. Drawing on anthropology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, narrative theory, law, and the history of medicine, Venus on Wheels is an intellectual tour de force.

September 1955. Six-year-old Mark O'Brien moved his arms and legs for the last time. He came out of a thirty-day coma to find himself enclosed from the neck down in an iron lung, the machine in which he would live for much of the rest of his life. How I Became a Human Being is Mark O'Brien's account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955, he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O'Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his weak physical state, O'Brien attended graduate school, explored his sexuality, fell in love, published poetry, and worked as a journalist. A determined writer, O'Brien used a mouthstick to type each word. O'Brien's story does not beg for sympathy. It is rather a day-to-day account of his reality--the life he crafted and maintained with a good mind, hired attendants, decent legislation for disabled people in California, and support from the University of California at Berkeley. He describes the ways in which a paralyzed person takes care of the body, mind, and heart. What mattered most was his writing, the people he loved, his belief in God, and his belief in himself.