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Great Resource

I work with the Florida Blueprint for School to Community Transition. We have recently published the "Employer Resource Guide, A Blueprint for Workforce Diversification." It is intended for employers but provides useful resources for all individuals with disabilities in Florida. If you will send me your snail mail address I'd be happy to send you one. Anyone else who is interested please email me directly. We also have another resource guide coming out in about a month that will be directed towards parents of individuals with disabilities transitioning from school to adult life. Thanks,

Stacy Guerin
Florida Blueprint for School to Community Transition
FSU-CPSE
312-F Stone Building
Tallahassee, Fl 32306-4463
(850) 644-9510

Websites

Mental Retardation Disease Table of Contents: Alternative Names Definition Causes, Incidence,
 Prevention Symptoms Signs and Tests. Treatment Expectations (Prognosis)...
(The link for this website is currently down. Sorry for the inconvenience.)

SPED430G Web Page
Introduction to Mental Retardation. From 1977 to 1989, the rate of students with special needs identified as having mental retardation decreased from 26 percent to 11 percent of the ...
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U. S. International Council on Mental Retardation and Developmental
The United States International Council on Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities . The United States International Council on Mental Retardation and Developmental ...
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American Association on Mental Retardation Homepage
American Association on Mental Retardation On behalf of AAMR leaders, staff and members, welcome to the AAMR Website. We've tried to prepare an on-line resource that will augment our ...
http://www.aamr.org

NATIONAL TRENDS
Braddock, D., Hemp, R., Lakin, K. C., & Smith G. (1994). Trends and milestones: Continuing expansion of financial resources for MR/DD services. Mental Retardation, 32(6), 446. The
(The link for this website is currently down. Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Publications

Birenbaum, A., & Cohen, H. J. (1993). On the importance of helping families: Policy implications from a national study. Mental Retardation, 31(2), 67-74.

This study is a companion to our 4-year study (Birenbaum, Guyot, & Cohen, 1990) on financing health care for individuals with autism or severe mental retardation. We reported on nonmedical expenditures and opportunity costs pertaining to maintaining a child or young adult with serious developmental disabilities in the home or in residential care and discussed policy implications for assisting their families. We proposed that (a) personal care and family support should be included in health care requirements, (b) family-centered care shou.ld be promoted, (c) appropriate programs and care should be provided for young adults no longer in school, (d) financing and organizing of family supports and subsidies should be administratively simple, (e) Medicaid should be expanded to increase use of home-and community-based services, and (f) financial support should be provided to families.

Mlawer, M. A. (1993). Who should fight? Parents and the advocacy expectation. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 4(1), 105-116.

In the attempt to help parents become better educational advocates for their children with disabilities, an "advocacy expectation" has been created. This expectation runs counter to the philosophy of normalization. The advocacy expectation and its effects are critically discussed. To counter the expectation and its effects, changes in professional roles, funding priorities, and program development are recommended.

Kennedy, M. J. (1994). The disability blanket. Mental Retardation, 32(1), 74-76.

The author of this article describes the ways in which service providers look at and treat people with developmental disabilities. Services such as Medicaid require paperwork that breaks down every human activity into goals and objectives, without the input of the recipient. Services need to be provided in the context of individuals planning their own goals and expectations, which would demonstrate the respect and privacy that we all prefer.

Lutfiyya, Z. M. (1991). `A feeling of being connected': Friendships between people with and without learning difficulties. Disability, Handicap & Society, 6(3).

Recently, programmatic attempts to encourage close ties between people with learning difficulties and typical citizens have increased. It is believed that such relationships will extend the assimilation of people with learning difficulties into society. The researcher presents the perspectives of four pairs of friends about the meaning of their friendships. The informants shared similar ideas and expectations about the characteristics of friendships in general. These included its mutual, exclusive, and voluntary nature; the right, obligations, and responsibilities of friends to each other; and the positive regard or affection found between friends. Despite efforts on the part of service providers to support the development of friendships between people with and without learning disabilities, the biggest barriers for the individuals in this study were the practices of the human service system, which curtailed opportunities for people which would have promoted the development and maintenance of friendships.

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Quotes:

Sometimes, when you go looking for your dreams, you don't need to look any further than... ...your own backyard.
-AGS

The squirels have become more and more selfish, once they had a constant supply of food. They guard and chase and push each other out of the tree.. to protect their food. When there was no abundance of food, they chased each other for fun. Go figure.
-AGS