September 27, 2013
|8:30 – 9:30 am|
|Dr. Leticia De Leon||Play to the Strengths: Accessible Fun and Learning for All Children||Children have a wonderful capacity for play and wonder, and it is their inherent curiosity that allows them to engage in profound ways. The marvel of play is that it is also a developmental tool for children to hardwire the ability to think and solve problems at a very young age.|
Indeed, children of all abilities and special needs have the fundamental capacity to engage—it is our task as parents, caregivers and educators to find the right tools, so that they play to their strengths. Although research can be a bit limited in areas of play for children of different abilities, the bottom line behind all those studies is the same: children must have opportunities to play to prevent developmental delays.
This session will provide parents, caregivers, and educators with guidance on how to select the tools and how to create the best opportunities for children of different abilities, so that they too can be let into the playground.
Dr. Leticia De León is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas – Pan American in Edinburg, Texas. She teaches in a teacher preparation program that certifies early childhood, bilingual, and special education elementary teachers.
Dr. De León teaches courses in child development and teaching methods for social studies and language arts for elementary teachers. She has used Second Life with problem-based scenarios to reinforce child development concepts
|10:00 – 11:00 am||Dr. Sarah Rule||Training Community Based Rehabilitation Personnel in South Africa||Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) is an inclusion strategy that focuses on enhancing the quality of life for people with disabilities and their families, meeting their basic needs, and ensuring participation in their society. CBR is promoted by the World Health Organization as a collaborative effort among people with disabilities; their families, organizations and communities; and relevant government and non-governmental health, education, vocational, social and other service providers.|
CBR has been piloted in different parts of rural and urban South Africa since its creation in the 1980s. Training of CBR personnel is critical to its success. Placing an emphasis on empowerment of persons with disabilities seems to be a key to appropriate training.
Dr. Sarah Rule is Managing Director at CREATE (CBR Education and Training for Empowerment) in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. CREATE is a non-government organization that has trained mid-level CBR personnel and continues to provide training on implementation of CBR Guidelines and Inclusion.
Dr. Rule’s research interests and experience are in curriculum development for CBR training, life history and action research, and developing tools, processes and procedures to assist mainstream NGOs to become disability-inclusive. She has also been an honorary senior lecturer in Disability Studies at the University of Cape Town.
|11:30 am – 12:30 pm||Vulcan Viper||Accessibility in Mind||Outside Second Life, Vulcan Viper has worked for a Dutch organization with the goal to audit the accessibility of public areas and buildings. During this time, he found that the approach was lacking something.|
He will begin this presentation by talking about a new approach to accessibility of public areas and buildings. Afterwards, he will pose some questions which will hopefully get people thinking about how they can do their bit to increase people’s awareness about accessibility.
Vulcan looks forward to sharing with us a fundamental approach to accessibility, which he hopes will spread far beyond the borders of his small country.
|1:00 – 2:00 pm||Vicki Robinson||Teaching Physics to Deaf Students in a 3-D Immersive World||Physics is the branch of science that deals with matter, motion, energy, force, space, and time. It is often thought to be the most difficult science subject to study. Second Life has provided a venue for teaching physics to deaf college students that really levels the playing field.|
Vicki Robinson has been teaching physics to deaf college students since 1978. She has been interested in instructional delivery methods that do not put deaf students at a disadvantage. Second Life presents a great opportunity for text-based, collaborative learning with a laboratory component. Hands-on learning with a twist!
|2:30 – 3:30 pm||Jennifer Sarrett||Disability in the Developing World: The Case of Autism in Kerala||Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. The result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, autism impacts normal development of the organ in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism experience difficulty in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction, and leisure or play activities. Autism is the most common of the Pervasive Development Disorders|
In India, a number of types of treatments are used for people with autism. These include ayurvedic herbal interventions, play and music therapies, sensory integration and hydrotherapies, and training regiments.
Jennifer Sarrett is a graduate student at Emory University, The Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts, Atlanta, Georgia. Her research interest is how cultural factors, such as educational structure, familial structure, religion, political structure, diet, medical facilities, etc., influence the identification, diagnosis, and treatment of autism. Her research is focused on Kerala, India.
|4:00 – 5:00 pm||Teresa Goddard||Service Animals in the Workplace||Teresa Goddard is a senior consultant on the Motor/Sensory Team at the Job Accommodation Network (JAN). She fields questions from employees and employers regarding their rights and responsibilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and assists in identifying accommodation solutions for employees with motor impairments.|
Ms Goddard holds bachelors and masters degrees in Speech Pathology and Audiology. She has taken additional graduate-level course work in augmentative and alternative communication, behavior disorders, and reading.
Her professional experience includes work as an Educational Speech-Language Pathologist and as an EFL instructor in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Her research interests include assistive technology and cross-cultural perspectives on disability services.
Ms. Goddard will describe how service animals can be accommodated in the workplace. This explanation will include information both for persons with disabilities who use service animals and for their employers.
|5:30 – 6:30 pm||International Panel #1||Disability Rights Around the World||Each country has a unique situation related to those in its population who have disabilities. Laws and enforcement of laws differs, but so do customs and other cultural factors. Learn about disability rights all around the world from our international panel of stakeholders.||Video: 52:37|
September 28, 2013
|6:00 – 7:00 am||Dr. Wisdom Mprah||Does Disability Matter?|
Disability in Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies and Research in Ghana
|Persons with disabilities often face serious barriers to sexual and reproductive health information and services due to institutional and attitudinal barriers. However, because Deaf people have unique communication and linguistic needs, too often misunderstood or ignored even by others in the disability community, they face greater barriers than other persons with disabilities. Available data indicate that there is a wide gap between knowledge and usage of contraceptive amongst Ghanaians in general. Little is known about the level of reproductive health knowledge and usage among people with disabilities.|
Dr. Wisdom Mprah is a teacher at the Mampong-Akuapim Secondary Technical School for the Deaf in Ghana. The school is an international school, receiving students from five other countries – Nigeria, Togo, La Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Kenya – in addition to Ghanians.
Dr. Mprah received his PhD from the University of Illinois, Chicago, in Disability Studies. He has conducted studies on knowledge and use of contraceptives among Deaf people in Ghana. These studies reveal methodological and ethical issues related to research among non-hearing populations.
|7:00 – 8:00 am||International Panel #2||Disability Rights Around the World||Each country has a unique situation related to those in its population who have disabilities. Laws and enforcement of laws differs, but so do customs and other cultural factors. Learn about disability rights all around the world from our international panel of stakeholders.||Video: 1:17:35|
|8:30 – 10:00 am|
|Dr. John Stone||The World Report on Disability||The World Report on Disability was released in 2011. Produced jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, this Report emphasizes that many of the barriers to access for people with disabilities are avoidable.|
There are over one billion people worldwide who have some kind of disability. People with disabilities have generally poorer health, education, and economic opportunities, and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. This is largely due to the lack of available services as well as the many obstacles people with disabilities face in their daily lives
Dr. John Stone is the Director of the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange (CIRRIE) at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The mission of the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange is to facilitate sharing of information among rehabilitation researchers around the world. The main resource provided by CIRRIE is the Database of International Research.
|10:00 – 11:00 am||Christel Schneider||European Language Portfolios for Specific Purposes||Teaching foreign languages to learners with special educational needs and especially to blind or deaf people poses a great number of challenges and constraints. Language Portfolios are useful tools for language learners, but also for the teachers in order to understand the needs of the blind and visually impaired or deaf or hard of hearing learners better, to monitor the teaching process and to assess the success of their pedagogical measures.|
The Language Portfolios presented here address the needs for equal opportunities for the blind, the deaf, and for people with visual or hearing impairment, and aim to encourage the learning of modern foreign languages.
The Portfolios also offer a fundamental basis for curriculum and test designers. They offer information about the language descriptors relevant for the specific group of learners.
The European Language Portfolios presented also provide tools for educational establishments and employers to assess the language competence of learners with special needs, regardless of whether they register for a course, apply for a job, or wish to take part in an international event.
Christel Schneider, Dipl.-Päd.,OETCert, is the managing director of CSiTrain, established in January 2013. Prior to this she was the project manager and director of ICC – the international language association.
Ms. Schneider has worked as a visiting lecturer at Hamburg University (Dept. of Education), teaching didactics and methodology for more than 10 years. She has also been involved in designing and tutoring local and international e-learning courses for a publishing house and for the University of London. She has frequently been involved in various EU-funded projects, including training and learning in 3D worlds.
|11:30 am – 12:30 pm||Dr. Margaret Stineman||Empowerment Medicine: Engaging Together||Empowerment medicine views health care providers as privileged by the special knowledge society entrusts to them as professionals. This special knowledge, belongs to and needs to be given to patients in ways that are clear, meaningful and optimally relevant to the achievement of personally valued life goals.|
How can we more thoroughly empower people rendered vulnerable to disparities in health care access and quality because of disability, ethnic differences, poverty, limited education or for other reasons?
Why is it in society’s interest to seek to provide equitable health care to people who are vulnerable?
This talk introduces a major project called “Mrs. A and Mr. B” which addresses questions like these. Come learn how to get involved in helping to influence access to and quality of health care services in the US in the future by engaging in this project.
Dr. Margaret Stineman is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a Professor and physician in a US medical school.
While taking care of people with disabilities, she saw that some people in need of health care were least able to access it due to disabilities. She also noticed that sometimes people with disabilities received a poorer quality care because of the challenges they and clinicians face related to their conditions.
|1:00 – 2:00 pm||International Panel #3||Disability Rights Around the World||Each country has a unique situation related to those in its population who have disabilities. Laws and enforcement of laws differs, but so do customs and other cultural factors. Learn about disability rights all around the world from our international panel of stakeholders.|
|2:30 – 3:30 pm||Mike Rose||Inclusive Emergency Preparedness, or “I’ll Open My Own Doors”||For the 54 million Americans with disabilities and millions of others around the world, surviving a disaster can be the beginning of a greater struggle. This presentation will provide practical information on how people with and without disabilities can prepare for an emergency. Information will be provided for family members of, and service providers to, people with disabilities. In addition, it will include information for emergency planners and first responders to help them to better prepare for serving persons with disabilities|
The Second Life Avatar CERT Mistwalker is a non-profit educator, independent consultant and emergency management practitioner working with the Confederated Defense Force, Disaster Zone and Virtual Ability.
His real life counterpart, Mike Rose, has over 30 years experience in matters related to emergency preparedness, mitigation and recovery. Mr. Rose is currently the Emergency Preparedness Specialist for the Public Health Division of the New Mexico Department of Health. His responsibilities include region-wide response planning to communicable disease outbreaks, developing and maintaining comprehensive regional plans to support receipt of Strategic National Stockpile materials, and distribution of countermeasures following incidents of bio-terrorism.
Mr. Rose is Board Certified in Homeland Security through the American Board of Certified Homeland Security professionals and is a FEMA recognized Professional Continuity Planner. As a citizen volunteer, Mr. Rose is the current Program Manager for the Albuquerque New Mexico Community Emergency Response Team Program. He is a certified Federal Emergency Management Administration Training Center and National Environmental Training Academy qualified instructor.
Mr. Rose is a current Member for the Albuquerque Citizen Corp Council; Past Chair of the New Mexico Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster; member of the New Mexico Emergency Managers Association and past First Chair of the Bernalillo County Local Emergency Planning Committee.
|4:00 – 5:00 pm||Dr. Nina Slota|
Dr. Stephanie Jenkins
|Gender, Community, and Collaboration:|
The Experiences of Women Living with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
|Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) is also known as complex regional pain syndrome. It is a chronic condition that may occur after an injury to a nerve, or following an illness or injury that didn’t directly damage any nerves. Many people with RSD have never met another person with that diagnosis.|
Dr. Nina Slota is a professor at Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota. She received her PhD from City University in New York in developmental psychology. Her current research interests include how adults living with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy experience their lives and identities, and how people with disabilities build community.
Dr. Stephanie Jenkins is an assistant professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. She received her dual Ph.D. in Philosophy and Women’s Studies from Pennsylvania State University in 2012. Her research and teaching interests include 20th century continental philosophy (especially French), feminist philosophy, disability studies, critical animal studies, and ethics.
|5:30-6:30 pm||International Panel #4||Disability Rights Around the World|