ADA

[Guest guest]

FYI

MORE ADA RELEASES

Mike Savory

From Great Lakes

Access Board. Board Group on Public Rights-of-Way to Meet in

San (Notice, March 13). Currently, the Board is preparing a proposed

set of guidelines on public rights-of-way that will supplement its ADA

Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG). These guidelines, which will cover access

to sidewalks, street crossings, and other related pedestrian facilities,

will be based on recommendations from an advisory committee organized by the

Board. The group will hold its next meeting in San , Texas on April 4

and 5, 2002.

http://www.access-board.gov/news/prowaac-sanantonio.htm

Key education post a magnet for controversy (Law.com daily

" Spotlight, " March 14). The Dept of Ed Office of Civil Rights is one of the

most important of the various federal agencies that oversee and enforce

affirmative action. Each year, it receives around 5,000 discrimination

complaints and investigates the nation's colleges, universities, and

elementary, middle and high schools for evidence of discrimination on the

basis of race, sex, ethnicity or disability. It also sets guidelines on

civil rights for schools that influence teachers and education boards around

the country.

http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=law/View

& c=Article & cid=ZZZDQBCLRYC & live=true & cst=1 & pc=0 & pa=0 & s=Any & ExpIgnore=true & sh

owsummary=0

D. IT

Learning Objects Spark an E-learning Revolution (E-Learning

News, March 1). With the convergence of distributed communication networks

and leading-edge teaching tools, the educational process is being

transformed into just-in-time learning that becomes available anywhere and

anytime. Learning Objects are leading the way to this transformation and

changing the landscape of education in the process by eliminating the

artificial lines and boundaries created by traditional teaching tools and

techniques.

http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/WCE/archives/mmerkow.htm

E. AT

Safe vehicle devised for physically handicapped (NOD, from

Japan Economic Newswire, March 13). InfoCom Research Inc. on Wednesday

conducted a successful public road test of a new vehicle for physically

handicapped and elderly people that uses information technology (IT) to

improve navigation and safety.

http://webpublisher.lexisnexis.com/index.asp?layout=story & gid=1510000551 & did

=45BJ-5JT0-00JR-G2MS-00000-00 & cid=1040002904 & b=s

F. General Disability

Tomorrow at UC/Berkeley, University of Illinois/Chicago

disability studies scholar Lennard J. delivers a lecture on " The End

of Identity Politics and the Beginnings of 'Dismodernism': Disability as the

New Paradigm for the 21st Century. " On Thursday and Friday (3/14,

3/15/2002), UC/Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law is putting on a symposium

" The Changing Face of Disability Law in the New Millennium. " Both events

point to growing disability scholarship and a concern over public

understanding of disability rights.

http://www.boalt.org/BDLS/conf.html

Mental Health Care Could See Reforms (AP, March 14).

Yates' capital murder conviction may help improve understanding of mental

illness and how it can best be treated, according to mental health experts.

Weinberger, chief of the clinical brain disorders branch of the

National Institute of Mental Health, said Wednesday that the conviction

underscores a need for more public education about chronic mental illness

and psychosis. " These are difficult concepts to communicate, " Weinberger

said. " The more we discover about mental illness, the more we understand

http://story.news./news?tmpl=story & cid=519 & u=/ap/20020314/ap_on_re_

us/children_slain_reform_1

Taking away college (St. sburg, Fla. Times Editorial,

March 13). By not allowing learning disabled children to use devices to help

them show their knowledge, they might fail the tests that would take away

their chance to get into college. Here's the problem: Learning aids allowed

in the classroom, and in every other test including the SAT, are mostly

forbidden, by the whim of the Florida Department of Education, for use on

the FCAT (a Fla. test). So a blind student who relies on a talking

calculator in the classroom must make do with an abacus for the most

important test of her young life. If the student hasn't mastered braille,

too bad. The Department allows students to take the critical reading

comprehension test only by sight or touch. That goes for kids with dyslexia,

too.

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/03/13/Opinion/Taking_away_college.shtml

Paralympians rely on special equipment to play their sports

(Washington Post, March 14)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24162-2002Mar13.html

' Column: Despite My Exhilaration, I Note

Barriers to Full Participation at the Paralympics (NOD, March 13). However,

as excellent as the Paralympics have been, there were still mistakes that

should not have happened. On the night of the opening ceremonies, the

program was not closed-captioned, none of the 160-plus entertainers had any

physical disability, and information was not offered in Braille or on tape

for blind and visually impaired people.

http://www.nod.org/cont/dsp_cont_item_view.cfm?viewType=itemView & contentId=8

34 & fromLocHmePg=T & fromLocationId=4 & timeStamp=14-Mar-0205:32:52