Life according to Crystal

Crystal Chin, 23, came to Canada from Taiwan at age 10 and can’t remember a time when therapy wasn’t a constant in her childhood. Crystal has profound insights about growing up with a disability in a culture that values normalcy. Crystal on therapy: My experience was extreme. I was doing therapy every single moment. My mom would drive me to physiotherapy every day, five days a week. Then my dad would come home and do an extra hour of physio...

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Identity: Is it what you do?

New Jersey author Amy Julia Becker, mom to Penny, spoke earlier this month to BLOOM readers about Raising kids with disabilities in an age of achievement. Click the link and check her out! Amy wrote A Good and Perfect Gift. We have a few copies of her book available at $15 Canadian. Thank you Amy Julia...

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'That quality we add is humanity'

Rick Guidotti spent years surrounded by conventional beauty ideals. He worked as a fashion photographer, shooting all over the world for companies like L’Oreal, Revlon and Yves Saint Laurent. But one day, his outlook changed. He spotted a girl with albinism on the street and was struck by her beauty. When he researched the genetic syndrome in medical textbooks, he was put off by the dehumanizing images he saw. So...

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Victoria Day

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Hey kids -- get mom to read this!

I have a wonderful Ryerson journalism student working on BLOOM this summer. Her name is Megan Jones. Here's a piece she did on the benefits of video games for children with cerebral palsy. The image left shows a child's skeleton while playing Wii tennis, as captured by a motion tracking system. This allows scientists to calculate to what extent the wrist, elbow and shoulder were used during the game. Hey kids -- get mom to read...

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Buzz Bissinger on his new memoir

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Kumon man

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Stop electric shocks on disabled students

A few months ago I saw a horrifying video of a student at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass. being given painful electric shocks 31 times. I could not fathom how a place of education for students with developmental and other disabilities had descended into this barbaric act. A former teacher's aid at the school has launched a petition to get the practice banned. I've signed and hope you will too. var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true}; ...

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The beauty of difference

Donna Thomson at The Political Caregiver posted this morning on a Ted Talk by fashion photographer Rick Guidotti, who travels the world showing the beauty in difference: From stigma to super model. It began when Rick started photographing children with albinism, who had been shunned and teased because of their different appearance. It grew into a project called Positive Exposure, which focuses on children and adults...

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A patient anthem to strength

Chris Rumble, 22, a leukemia patient, filmed fellow patients, doctors and nurses dancing and singing to Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" in a celebration of resilience at the hematology/oncology unit at Seattle Children's Hospital. Thanks to Cheryl for sending this ge...

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Links

California agency ripped over disparity in autism spending In its December series, The Los Angeles Times found that for autistic children ages 3 to 6 — a critical period for treating the disorder — the Developmental Services department spent an average of $11,723 per child on whites in 2010, compared with $11,063 on Asians, $7,634 on Latinos and $6,593 on blacks. Finding the right school for a fragile son (Thanks Alison!) Our special...

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Silent Sunday

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Does physical disability make a parent less fit?

This just in on the case of the Mississauga parents of a new baby who both have cerebral palsy: Disabled parents allowed to keep newborn son Says the CBC: "The parents were fighting to keep their child after social workers threatened to take the boy away unless he receives round-the-clock care from an "able-bodied attendant." We did a story years ago about a single mom with cerebral palsy and limited hand function and her two girls. 'I know that I'm raising really good girls' I learned a lot interviewing that mo...

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Mr. Ben?

Last week when Ben walked into the Kumon waiting room with a volunteer she was all smiles. “Flawless!” she exlaimed, holding up a book of sums adding 4 that Ben had just finished. Ben and I grinned and I could imagine his chest filling with pride. Every child needs to feel successful and I’m grateful that Ben is having this opportunity – even if it’s totally out of whack with the typical learning trajectory of kids. At the...

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Links

Nine ways you can help a special-needs parent Michael Kutcher, Ashton's twin brother, fights for cerebral palsy research The litigious mess of special education Family misses flight after TSA gives pat-down to girl with cerebral palsy Superstar Colin Farrell tells of 'blessed' life with special-needs child Facebook asks mom of 7-year-old with Down syndrome to remove pics 5 celeb parents who have kids with disabilities Rainbox...

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'Down' stereotypes automatic, study finds

In Flippity flop I wrote about how people make split-second judgments about children who have facial features associated with genetic syndromes. A French study published last month in the journal PLoS One finds that photos of children with Down syndrome elicit less positive attitudes than photos of typically developing children -- particularly if the features are 'strongly typical' of the syndrome. In addition to asking...

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Children's rehab in Brazil

Nacho Doce is a photojournalist with Reuters based in São Paulo, Brazil. Check out this moving series of photos he took at a local children's rehab clinic.   "One thing that left me speechless was that the majority of the children’s companions there were mothers who were alone because either their husbands were at work or had abandoned them and their disabled children," Doce write...

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Who should be allowed to be a parent?

The Children's Aid Society of Peel has petitioned to have a baby removed from the home of a couple who have cerebral palsy, unless the couple hires a full-time, and in their words, "able-bodied" attendant. Metro Morning's Matt Galloway spoke with Ryan Machete, who works with the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities in Unfit parents...

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