3 Reasons for Using a Fake Name for Your Service Animal in Public and 5 Tips for Choosing the Best One for You

https://goo.gl/iMDsmN

I took my seat on the Paratransit vehicle, across from a colleague, a lady with her dog guide. The third traveler on the vehicle asked the lady what her dog’s name was; her reply totally took me by surprise.

“What did she just call that dog? That’s not that dog’s name!”

That was exactly what I was thinking. The other rider said hi to the dog using this fake name and then went about his business. The driver dropped him off, and immediately I asked the lady why she gave the guy a different name for her dog. You will discover her answer as we provide 3 reasons why you, also, may wish to use a false name for your service animal in public. Then we will offer 5 tips for picking the best made-up name for your service animal.

The Problem

Traveling with a service animal (a guide dog in my particular case) has many benefits; the admiring public often is not one of them. Sure, it’s great when people tell you how cute your dog is; it’s much more troubling when they want to stop and “Converse” with him, repeating his name time and time again.

Based on the incident outlined above and another similar one I witnessed a few months later, I decided that the “Fake name” idea was a good one. Here are 4 reasons why you also may wish to adopt this strategy.


Neurodiversity: The Future of Special Education?

https://goo.gl/vFJpKw

At some point, the field of special education needs to rid itself of its negative baggage and embrace a more progressive way of educating students who learn differently. The concept of neurodiversity provides the catalyst for such a change.

A neurodiversity-based approach to special education differs in many ways from the special education system currently operating in most schools. Figure 1 summarizes these differences—some theoretical and some more practical. Let's look at a few of the differences that have the most powerful implications.

Figure 1. A Tale of Two Special Education Paradigms


Elements of Deficit-Based Special Education

Elements of Strengths-Based Special Education (Grounded in Neurodiversity)

Focus

Disability

Diversity

Assessment methods

Testing to detect deficits, disorders, and dysfunctions

Assessing strengths and challenges

Instructional approaches

Remediating weaknesses

Building on strengths and using them to overcome challenges

Theoretical foundations

Genetics, neurobiology

Evolutionary psychobiology, social and ecological theory

View of the brains of students with special needs

In many cases, the brain is seen as damaged, dysfunctional, or disordered

Part of the natural human variation of all human brains

Program goals

Meeting instructional objectives

Developing human potential

Student goal

Learning to live with your disability

Learning to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses

Student self-awareness

Explaining students' disabilities to them using machine-based metaphors

Helping students value their diverse brains using growth mindset, neuroplasticity, and "brain forest" metaphors


New short documentary shines a light on adults with intellectual disabilities

https://goo.gl/JwsfHQ

What if you didn’t feel welcome in the city you live in? What if you didn’t feel comfortable, or even safe, going into stores or taking transit? What if, wherever you went, you felt like people were staring at you?

For many of us, that kind of alienation is hard to imagine, but for many people with intellectual disabilities, it’s a part of everyday life.

Now, a short documentary film – part of a research project led by McMaster’s Ann Fudge Schormans – is providing a unique glimpse into the lives of adults with intellectual disabilities living in Toronto and is exploring ways to make the city a more welcoming place.

My Life in the City, screening at the ReelAbilities Film Festival on May 13, follows adults labelled with intellectual disabilities as they share stories, ideas, and a vision for a more inclusive Toronto.

The film grew out of a research project led by Fudge Schormans and co-investigator Rob Wilton, associate professor and director of McMaster’s School of Geography and Earth Sciences, who for the past three years have been working with adults with intellectual disabilities to map their use of spaces in Toronto.

“We wanted to find out how these adults actually live in their communities,” says Fudge Schormans, who along with her research team, worked with 12 adults with intellectual disabilities.

They accompanied the adults on journeys through the city using GPS/GIS technologies, iPads, and cameras to map and capture the spaces they use in their day-to-day lives. Researchers then conducted a series of interviews and workshops using drama-based exercises to find out what they thought about being a person with an intellectual disability living in Toronto.

“We wanted to understand, where do they go? What do they do? Who do they see? Who do they talk to and engage with? Do they feel safe? Who gets to make the decisions about where they go? And are there other places they would rather go? The point of this research was to find that out,” says Fudge Schormans.

The research revealed that while, in most cases, the adults were able to carve out a place for themselves in the city, many had also been the victims of discrimination and even physical violence. Although each adult used and perceived city spaces differently, Fudge Schormans says a common theme emerged: “Very often they don’t feel welcome. They don’t feel like they’re part of the city at all.”


Placebo Effect Despite Intellectual Disability

The placebo effect is part of a general framework of meaning that underlies our common view of humanness as including sensitivity to pain. It has long been asserted by those who devalue people with intellectual disabilities (and other devalued communities, for that matter) that "they" don't experience pain the same way that "we" do. I have heard that less and less over the years, but I have to wonder if that isn't just de-valuers learning that there is a price to pay for the explicit voicing of hateful beliefs. The placebo effect is one of those consummate socially generated emblems of common humanity. This study says that superficial signs of intellectual disability are no indicator of deep social connection. Sorry for the rant.......

https://goo.gl/GctufX

Contrary to earlier beliefs, people with severe congenital intellectual disability are sensitive to placebo-like effects, new research from Karolinska Institutet shows, published in the scientific journal Neurology. The results suggest that the influence of implicit social signals on expectancy effects has been underestimated.

The placebo effect is an example of how the power of the mind may influence the functions of the body, such as when a simple sugar pill alleviates pain when the taker believes it to be a real analgesic.

But placebo-like effects also occur when expectations influence the efficacy of real drugs. Until now, placebo researchers have presumed that this type of expectancy effect requires higher-order intellectual functions, such as reasoning, abstract thinking and predicting the future. But it now turns out to be more complex than that.

“Our results challenge the existing ideas of how treatment expectations are formed and we can now propose other more intuitive processes as a possible basis of the placebo effect, such as the ability to internalise the expectations of the people around you,” says Karin Jensen, assistant professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

VOTING WHILE DISABLED: INSIDE THE NEW ACLU CASE

https://goo.gl/mRkVRj

On the day of the New Hampshire primary back in February of 2016, I accompanied Jameyanne Fuller, a blind voter, to the polls in Manchester. I'd been introduced to her by the Disability Rights Center in the state, and she told me she was super excited to vote for the first time entirely by herself. New Hampshire, it turned out, had a new audio and touchscreen voting machine that should have been fully accessible to blind voters. In the past, Fuller had had to vote with an assistant, but now, she could exercise her franchise independently. The machine didn't work at first, but a technician came to solve the problem quickly, and Fuller was able to cast her vote in privacy. For her efforts, she received the New Hampshire "I voted" sticker, in which the white outline of a person in a wheelchair is depicted in front of the "N" in "NH." Disability rights, the sticker suggests, are now fully integrated into the New Hampshire voting process.

Which makes the new American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit alleging widespread disability discrimination in New Hampshire's absentee ballot process all the more troubling. According to the complaint, the state requires signatures on absentee ballots to match those on the application form for the ballot. In the event that the signatures don't match, as determined by untrained election moderators, the state just throws out the ballot without notifying the affected voter. According to the lawsuit, hundreds of ballots are thrown out every election. "Even one disenfranchised voter," the complaint reads, "is too many. And no voter should be disenfranchised simply because of penmanship."


Uber launches new public transit feature in 3 Michigan cities

https://goo.gl/otiKU7

The ride-sharing app Uber noticed many of its users are using the service in conjunction with public transportation.

In recognition of that fact, the company on Tuesday, May 16, launched a new feature for Android devices in collaboration with the mobile app Transit.

In the 47 U.S. cities in which the service was launched Tuesday, Uber will automatically recognize whenever a rider's end destination is at or near a public transit stop and display upcoming departure times. 

With both Uber and the Transit app installed, users can tap on the display to open the public transit navigational app for directions, service disruption updates and more.

The hope is to make it easier for people to get from A to B and to eliminate the need to shuffle between various different apps, according to a blog post from Andrew Salzberg, Uber's head of transportation policy and research.

"At both Uber and Transit, we envision a future in which every journey is shared using a combination of transit options," Salzberg writes.

The ultimate goal, he writes, is to create better connected cities, a viable alternative to car ownership and reduced traffic and parking concerns.

"While there's still much more work to do, we're excited that our integration with Transit can help us get one step closer to this reality," Salzberg writes.

The Transit app works with a number of of different public transit options in each participating city.

In Grand Rapids, it provides real-time data from public transit provider The Rapid. In Detroit, the app draws information from the Detroit Department of Transportation and Transit Windsor. In Ann Arbor, the app draws its information from The Ride transit service and from U-M Transit.


Self-Direction of Home- and Community-Based Services: A Training Curriculum for Case Managers

https://goo.gl/H8BPPS

Self-direction of home- and community-based services (HCBS) allows individuals to determine what mix of personal care services and supports works best for them within the parameters of their person-centered service plan. Many states implementing Medicaid managed long-term services and supports or other managed integrated care programs that provide HCBS are offering individuals the opportunity to self-direct their HCBS. Health plan case managers play a key role in implementing self-direction.

The webinars and accompanying resources in this curriculum provide an overview of self-direction, considerations for the design and implementation of a self-direction program, and best practices for oversight of a self-direction program in a managed care context. The curriculum also provides several tools to help case managers explain the self-direction option and the related responsibilities of individuals choosing this option. In addition, there is information for health plans to help individuals determine if the self-direction option is right for them. 


Making VR less painful for the vision-impaired

https://goo.gl/c8aSw9

Vision is a complicated process, and a lot of things can go wrong — but common afflictions like nearsightedness or an inability to focus on objects close up affect millions. Combined with how VR presents depth of field and other effects, this leads to a variety of optical problems and inconsistencies that can produce headaches, nausea and disorientation.

VR headsets often allow for adjusting things like the distance from your eye to the screen, how far apart your eyes are and other factors. But for many, it’s not enough.

Every person needs a different optical mode to get the best possible experience in VR,” said Stanford’s Gordon Wetzstein in a news release.

His team’s research, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes a set of mechanisms that together comprise what they call an adaptive focus display.

One approach uses a liquid lens, the shape of which can be adjusted on-the-fly to adjust for certain circumstances — say, when the focus of the game is on an object that the viewer normally wouldn’t be able to focus on. The screen itself could also be moved in order to better fit the optical requirements of someone with a given condition.

“The technology we propose is perfectly compatible with existing head mounted displays,” wrote Wetzstein in an email to TechCrunch. “However, one also needs eye tracking for this to work properly. Eye tracking is a technology that everyone in the industry is working on and we expect eye trackers to be part of the next wave of [head-mounted displays]. Thus, our gaze-contingent focus displays would be directly compatible with those.”