The winner of Britain’s Got Talent this year is…
The Lost Voice Guy!
He is very funny, but his message is serious (which makes for brilliant comedy.). As he says, “I was disabled before I was popular.” Furthermore, “People were laughing at me even before I became a comedian.”
One fan on YouTube has compiled this vignette of his journey:
We’ll let him tell of the rest of his journey!
“Election Night at Rockefeller Plaza” Photo by: Marco Verch, in the Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voting. It’s the right of every American citizen. Voting: It’s your right. Participating in U.S. democracy is also a unique chance to self-advocate and express one’s independence. Both of these are core values at Advancing Opportunities as well; they are at the heart of our mission and credo. All too often, however, people with disabilities find themselves excluded from this critically important process. Fortunately, here in New Jersey, information and resources on voting are available to every individual with a disability.
This brochure has information to help New Jersey voters. It was developed by the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School – Boggs Center, in collaboration with Disability Rights New Jersey and the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities.
Although the November general elections receive the greatest press (and social media) coverage, it is the primary election when the two major parties, the Democrats and Republicans nominate their candidates for the general election in November. These individuals represent a wide variety of views on important issues not only at the national level, but also (and sometimes more important) the state, county, and municipal levels. Information on the positions of the gubernatorial (in New Jersey) and other candidates are available on this special page.
Disability Rights New Jersey is New Jersey’s designated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities pursuant to federal statutes intended to protect the legal, civil, and human rights of people with disabilities. The organization reminds us that people with a disability have the right to vote independently and in private. In addition, both the polling place and the machines must, by federal and state law, be fully accessible. Poll workers have been trained to offer voters with disabilities the assistance they need, but they cannot enter the voting booth or recommend a candidate. Voters with a disability may also bring a friend, family member, or agency worker to help out.
Although all voters should receive a paper sample ballot, one can also look up this information online at Ballotpedia. The Alliance Center for Independence in New Jersey has many other excellent resources on its page should these be needed. General New Jersey voting information is available on the NJ Department of State website.
On Primary Election Day, June 6, 2017, Disability Rights New Jersey will have attorneys available by telephone to answer your questions concerning any disability-related voting problem you might experience. Call 800-922-7233 or e-mail Mciccone@drnj.org between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Disability Rights New Jersey is New Jersey’s designated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities pursuant to federal statutes intended to protect the legal, civil, and human rights of people with disabilities.
Oh, yes, the November general election. The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), “a convener, connector, and catalyst for change, increasing the political and economic power of people with disabilities,” has set up July 17 through 21 as National Disability Voter Registration Week, the focus of its Rev Up! campaign. More information on that and Crip the Vote will be featured in a future article in this space.
Louis Braille (1809-1852)
In 1809, on January 4, Louis Braille was born. At age 5, the curious boy was blinded in an accident with one of his father’s tools. However, Louis refused to let his disability stop him from getting the most of life. As a teen at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, he self-advocated by developing the system of writing that, to this day, bears his name. In his honor, the 4th of January has been declared World Braille Day.
Braille’s alphabet consists of a series cells containing, in a 2 x 3 grid, as a raised dot or a blank space. Though there are only six dots or spaces, they can be combined in 64 different ways, allowing for other characters, including letters from the alphabets of other languages. In other words, braille is not a language, but a code for transcribing many other languages. Nowadays, there are two main types of braille: Grade 1 and Grade 2. Grade 1 is a functional letter-by-letter transcription of text. Grade 2 uses combinations of letters in a single braille character, allowing for much shorter documents; it is the most widely accepted form of braille.
Br The basic braille alphabet consists of cells of six dots, raised in a variety of combinations and permutations. There are also symbols for punctuation and letter combinations.
Braille provides access to written communication for blind people, in other words, accessibility beyond physical means such as access ramps. In other words, braille is a form of inclusion, allowing everyone to participate in an important aspect of society, regardless of their disability. In creating the braille system for reading and writing for the blind, Louis Braille was advocate and self-advocate for people with disabilities par excellence. And for his part in developing the braille writer, Louis Braille was also one of the great assistive technology specialists of all time.
The braille writer creates the raised dots for braille text rather than printing individual letters or characters. As with the typewriter, the basic layout of the braille writer has been incorporated in modern assistive technology braille input devices.
“Access to communication … is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronized by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals—and communication is the way this can be brought about.”
—Louis Braille
Everyday Aspergers, by Samantha Craft
A little girl, a free spirit, loved to spend hours absorbed in the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. She saw herself as a caterpillar, “set free upon endless green, nibbling at the gifts before her.” That is, “until the rain came.” Caterpillar became Butterfly, lovely and able to reach great heights. However, as she did so, her world became both smaller and larger. Everything was unfamiliar and ever-changing. With all that was good, also came evils Caterpillar had never known. Yet she was able to see “Caterpillar Land,” and realized that “butterflies don’t have to let go of the caterpillar to fly.”
In the same manner, Samantha Craft goes between adulthood and childhood, relating each one to the other. The challenges of Butterfly are those of an autistic woman on the higher end of the spectrum – Asperger’s. Craft offers 150 vignettes of “everyday Asperger’s,” providing an insight into living with – and ultimately accepting – the condition. Though most of the time, Craft speaks as Butterfly, in some of the pieces, she ventures into memories of her childhood and teen years, when she was Caterpillar. These vignettes are not in chronological order. I fact, at times they seem random, a reflection of the thought process of someone with ADHD, a condition that often accompanies autism. Yet, everything is held together by the book’s theme of describing life with “Everyday Apserger’s.”
Early on, Craft refers to herself as “an autistic woman” and “an Aspie,” not “a woman with autism” or “a woman with Asperger’s.” These conditions are not something she has; they are who she is. This is the essence of the neurodiversity movement, as described by Craft’s colleague, Steve Silberman, in his groundbreaking book, NeuroTribes.
Craft writes with a spirit of humor and warmth, both of which are present even in her darkest moments. Craft earned respect and gained a following with her essay, “Ten Traits (Females with Aspergers,” which is included here. Since then, more and more women (and men) with Aspergers have recognized themselves, identifying with Crafts adventures and misadventures, and Everyday Aspergers is the product of ten years of such essays. “This journey is all about my identity,” says Craft. “I’m trying to figure out how Asperger’s defines who I am as an individual.” This early essay sets the tone for such questions as what role she would like to play, as an alien dropped down from “Planet Aspie” to a world in which they are wired differently. Or is she different? Most likely, in keeping with the theme of neurodiversity, we are all different. That said, Craft still acknowledges the importance of people with Asperger’s in recognizing when they commit social faux pas and how to best adapt to society at large and find peace within themselves.
The Arc of New Jersey and the Rutgers Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation are collaborating on a research study about how adults with disabilities use different modes of transportation. They are seeking self-advocates to share their stories about how they get around and their hopes for future transportation systems.
Participants will answer questions in a brief interview conducted by members of the New Jersey Self-Advocacy team. The answers will be used to develop a report about the positive and negative aspects of current transportation options.
To learn more about the project, contact NJSAP@ArcNJ.org or call Lorraine Seid, at 732-749-8514.
At Advancing Opportunities, we excel in providing residential and respite services to people of with all disabilities, along with advocacy and education services for parents and guardians and assistive technology support. As a leader in the field, we are pleased to share our experience, knowledge, and expertise with the disability community through our social media outlets: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. In our Disability and Ability Highlights of the Week column, we will select the best of what we found and shared and present them. Please click on the titles with embedded links to find the full article.
Please stop by our website, http://advopps.org/, and find out all we have to offer. In addition, we are specialists in the area of assistive technology and offer a huge array of services; the Assistive Technology Center is New Jersey’s premier source of information and equipment.
With summer almost over, this hay rake will soon be put to use to gather hay to feed the animals for the winter. This is one of many agricultural implements on displayed – and actually used – at Fosterfield’s Farm. Fosterfield’s is a living historic farm in Morristown, NJ, accurately re-creating 19th century farming. Photo: Daniel L. Berek
Advancing Opportunities is hiring caring and committed residential services pros! If you live in central New Jersey and are interested, please stop by our open house on September 7, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. You can also apply online.
Learning Ally launches program for blind and visually impaired students.
Tips for children with dyslexia, from a dyslexic author.
Most children who learn more than one language gain valuable skills, and researchers say this may also be true for children with autism.
Inspired by a desire to help her grandmother with Alzheimer’s remember important family days, a teen creates a “timeless” app.
A blind 25-year-old woman is starting Harvard Law School to make a difference for others: “I had to advocate for myself every day.”
ACI, the New Jersey Alliance Center for Independence offers workshops to encourage people with disabilities to learn about the issues, self-advocate, and vote.
A talented young engineer creates affordable and versatile assistive technology device to help paralyzed people take a sip.
A young photographer uses his creative photography to document and cope with his depression.
“Disabled people don’t exist to make non-disabled people feel better.”
A ten-year-old autistic boy writes a poem about how he feels; his teacher and parents are astounded.
Fashion designers who create clothes for people with disabilities are profiled.
An orphan girl with Down syndrome is now a fashion model for a major store.
Researchers have charted the human cerebral cortex in unprecedented detail, adding to what is known about the brain’s bumpy outer layer.
A new report shows continuing gains in employment among people with disabilities.
As part of a national campaign to urge people with all disabilities to speak out for themselves through the power of the vote, the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and other advocacy organizations have launched the REV UP campaign. A major part of this effort is National Disability Voter Registration Week, July 11–15, 2016, which was established last year, as part of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Why? The primary reason, according to AAPD, is that “There are nearly 30 million people with disabilities eligible to vote when registered. This number does not even include ‘the ripple effect’ of family, friends, and service professionals who will vote in-line with disability interests…. REV UP campaigns around the country will make a concerted effort to get more people with disabilities registered to vote, educate voters about issues and candidates, promote turnout of voters with disabilities across the country, engage candidates and the media on disability issues, and protect eligible voters’ right to participate in elections.” A recent article in the Huffington Post also outlines why people should care, providing statistics and challenges people with various disabilities face.
Justin Dart, the actor who spurred the ADA, is the subject of a poster, with the caption “Vote as if your life depends on it. Because it does!”
The DisabilityVisibility #CripTheVote campaign, covered in this blog on June 3 is one of several co-sponsors, an advocacy organization founded and run by people with disabilities to raise awareness and appreciation for “America’s largest minority.” As Alice Walker said, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” #CripTheVote will follow up on Sunday, July 24, 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. ET with a Twitter chat, “Disability, Violence and Public Policy.”
In addition to the many links AAPD and other groups provide, Disability Thinking is another worthwhile source, with many links arranged by category.
It is also worthwhile to note that people in the Deaf community are asking why most political ads lack captioning to make them accessible to Deaf and hard-of-hearing voters. Indeed, the campaign is about both accessibility and having candidates for public office address the needs and injustices all to many people with disabilities face.
Often, public transport and paratransit provide lifelines to accessibility to the community. Here are ten things one should know about paratransit.
In our neck of the woods, Mercer County, New Jersey, the Greater Mercer TMA offers an invaluable travel training program for all users of public transportation, especially people with a disability and senior citizens.
In addition, a program for health care professionals to assist their clients in using mass transit will be offered on June 28:
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A former Rutgers football player, Eric LeGrand, paralyzed in 2010, has embraced life and love. And, over the course of his recovery among wheelchair races and therapy dogs, he befriended a young woman with cerebral palsy, Gianna Brunini. The next step was for him to ask Gianna to her high school’s (Hannover Park) senior prom; he did so by giving a motivational speech to all the students, as reported in a recent newspaper article.
Some very positive news from our own community! And Eric has already earned the admiration of President Obama.
During the primaries, and with the general election fast approaching, political candidates are appealing to many groups. However, there has been increasing concern about whether people running for office are considering the needs of the nation’s largest minority: people with disabilities. Three disability advocates, Alice Wong, Andrew Pulrang, and Gregg Beratan have launched a campaign to address this shortcoming: Crip the Vote. These disability advocates are the forces behind DisabilityVisibility and Disability Thinking. The first is “a nonpartisan campaign to engage both voters and politicians in a productive discussion about disability issues in the United States, with the hope that disability takes on greater prominence within the American political landscape.” DisabilityVisibility started as an extension of the StoryCorps project, to give a voice to people with a meaningful life story that might not otherwise be heard or told. The latter is a blog on various disability issues. It offers a one-stop reference to learn how to register to vote and the positions of the candidates, so they can make an informed choice. Moreover, people with disabilities are urged to question and petition the candidates on issues affecting them. The Rev Up Campaign is coordinating a National Disability Registration Week, July 11-15. And, most important, this advocacy work must continue beyond the election, as Congress is responsible for enacting laws that protect the rights of people with a disability.
A Word About That Word: “Crip”
The casual observer may question the use of the word crip. After all, it is a shortened version of the derogatory term cripple. The organizers of the Sex and Disability Conference, held November 2015, reclaimed the word as an inclusive term to represent people with all disabilities.
Celebrating Individual Abilities 