It’s been quite a month for athletes with special needs. At the beginning of February, Josh Dueck, who is paralyzed from the waist down, became the first person to successfully land a backflip on a sit-ski. And in Australia, Roya Abdolhosini, who has one leg, demonstrated her mastery of gymnastics as part of the International Olympic Committee’s Show Your Best video competition. These athletes are trying hard to live up to the example of Oscar Pistorius, a South African sprinter born without his lower legs who may very well qualify for this summer’s London Olympics.

The National Federation of the Blind says that only one in ten blind people read Braille, a system of writing that for years has allowed blind people to read and communicate. The reason for the decline? Smart phones and other advanced mobile devices that offer countless apps for people with limited vision.

As smart phones get smarter, fewer and fewer blind people are willing to learn Braille because their phones provide many tools that go beyond Braille’s capabilities, such as an app that scans money and lets the user know the denomination of his bills. In addition, portable e-readers and audio books mean that most literature and media can be read to a blind person with the touch of a button.

The National Public Radio program All Tech Considered recently discussed the transition from Braille to other media and its implications for blind people and for school districts that are attempting to avoid having to pay human Braille teachers when technology may suffice.

To read about the blind community’s reaction, read (or listen) to the story on All Tech Considered’s blog, here.

An uncomfortable incident at a Philadelphia diner has turned into a teachable moment for Pennsylvania restaurateurs.

Last month, the owner of a diner in the City of Brotherly Love received quite a bit of negative publicity when his staff got into an argument with the family of a child with autism after the child tore up a menu. A board member of a local school for people with special needs heard about the incident and decided that the school’s students and staff could use the incident as a tool for teaching restaurant employees how to respond to children with special needs.

Starting next month, the school will offer monthly seminars where local restaurant employees can learn how to properly interact with children with autism and other special needs. As Herman Axelrod, the school’s executive director, explained to CBS 3, the seminars will “help people understand the nature of children with autism. They have communication problems, socialization problems and a lot of involuntary movements where their hands may go up in the air or spin. Talking with the people with restaurants about these characteristics help them understand.”

To read about the school’s teachable moment, click here.

Since 1997, families who adopt a child have been eligible for a tax credit for their adoption expenses. When the credit was initiated, families whose adoption expenses exceeded their actual yearly tax bill were only able to zero-out their taxes, but in 2010 the credit became refundable, giving taxpayers a refund if their expenses were higher than their tax owed.

This wonderful reward is compounded for families who adopt a child with special needs because in many cases those families are entitled to the full tax credit allowed under the law ($13,360 for the 2011 tax year) even if their adoption expenses are not that high. For example, if a family spends $2,000 adopting a child with special needs and owes $4,000 in taxes, with all else being equal they will receive a $9,360 refund in the year that they adopted their child. A family with the same financial profile that adopts a child without special needs will still owe the government $2,000.

Families with high incomes may not be eligible for the credit. The North American Council on Adoptable Children has the details here.

CNN has a summary of the credit, and some other tax tips, here.

Earlier this year, 27-year-old comedian Zach Anner won the opportunity to create his own TV show as a finalist on “Your OWN Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star.” After several months of work, Anner’s show recently premiered on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

This may sound like a fairly typical path to reality-TV stardom, but Anner’s case is unusual because he is one of only a handful of TV personalities with a disability.

Anner was born with cerebral palsy, a condition he jokingly calls “the sexiest of the palsies.” But instead of keeping his condition in the background, Anner has made it the center of his show and his comedy routine, cracking jokes and attempting stunts that would stump most people who aren’t confined to wheelchairs.

The new show, Rollin’ with Zach, has received middling reviews as a travel show, but critics like the New York Times’ Jon Caramanica have raved about Anner as a comedian and a host. In a recent review in the Times, Caramanica called Anner “the most engaging personality on a network that needs them badly.”

Rollin’ with Zach airs on Mondays at 8:00 pm and 8:30 pm Eastern Time on OWN.

According to an Alabama court, a woman with a well-documented history of intellectual disabilities is not eligible for much-needed assistance from Medicaid because she received the barely passing score of 70 on an IQ test 16 years ago.

Medicaid is a joint program between the states and the federal government, which means that each state is allowed to administer its Medicaid program as its sees fit, so long as the state’s regulations are not more restrictive than those of the federal law. States also have the option to request “waivers” of certain federal requirements in order to implement new Medicaid programs that target areas of particular need. Many states, including Alabama, operate waiver programs that assist people who have intellectual disabilities in performing basic activities of daily living. However, in order to qualify for assistance under Alabama’s program, an applicant must, among other things, have an IQ under 70.

Betty Jane Kerby, a 65-year-old woman with intellectual disabilities, had a history of scoring in the 60s on IQ tests dating back to high school, where she was a poor student with serious behavioral problems. However, in 1995 Ms. Kerby received a score of 70 on an IQ test that she took when seeking placement in a group home. She scored 62 on her most recent IQ test in 2009. When Ms. Kerby applied for benefits from the Medicaid waiver program, her application was rejected because of her score on the 1995 IQ test, despite her more recent, much lower score and history of disabilities. An Alabama appeals court has upheld her denial, leaving her with one last appeal to the state’s highest court.

Ms. Kerby’s case illustrates a legal principle known as “agency discretion” or “agency interpretation” that comes up a lot in cases dealing with disability benefits. What this means, in a nutshell, is that under federal law and most states’ administrative codes, a court cannot overturn a state agency’s interpretation of its own regulations unless its interpretation is unreasonable. This gives most agencies an enormous amount of flexibility when it comes to making disability determinations. The Alabama court cited this principle when it upheld the state’s decision, explaining that “[n]o evidence was presented indicating that the Department’s and the Agency’s interpretation of the eligibility criteria was unreasonable or that it contradicted any other interpretation of the same or similar criteria.”

We’ll post an update if the court’s decision is reversed.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case that pits a teacher’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act against her employer’s right to the free exercise of religion.

Cheryl Perich was a “called teacher” with tenure at a Lutheran elementary school in Michigan. Ms. Perich primarily taught math and science, but, as a called teacher, she was also responsible for some religious instruction and she led class prayers.

Ms. Perich developed narcolepsy, a severe sleep disorder, and took a leave of absence. While she was out, the school hired another teacher to take her place. When Ms. Perich was ready to return to work, the school showed no interest in having her back, and it put pressure on her to resign. Ms. Perich threatened to sue the school for discriminating against her based on her disability, but before she pursued the lawsuit the school fired her. Relying on the anti-retaliation provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibit employers from firing employees who attempt to assert their rights under the Act, Ms. Perich sued the school.

The school fought back, claiming that it had the right to fire Ms. Perich because she was a minister of the church and, as such, she was required to settle the dispute within the church. The school claimed that its First Amendment right to free exercise of religion trumped the Americans with Disabilities Act and prevented Ms. Perich, or the government, from pursuing a claim for retaliatory firing.

This interesting intersection of disability law and religion could have significant consequences for people with disabilities who work for religious organizations. If the school’s position is taken to an extreme, and if the Supreme Court adopts it, religious organizations could have almost free rein to fire employees for being disabled. It is unlikely that the court will take up such a radical position, but any decision in the school’s favor could be a setback for disability rights. A decision in the case is expected by June.

To read NPR’s summary of the case and the arguments before the court, click here and here.

The Social Security Administration began making monthly payments to seniors in 1940 and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) followed 14 years later. In those early years, it took an act of Congress to increase Social Security benefits and the first benefit rise didn’t happen until 1950. (In all fairness to Congress, when it did increase benefits it really increased them, fully doubling the original figures by 1954.)

In order to introduce some degree of certainty into this process, in 1972 Congress passed a law that makes Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) mandatory in any year in which the Consumer Price Index (CPI) exceeds the CPI from the last year in which the government issued a COLA. (For a more detailed explanation of this process, click here).

This formula, which was rigged to essentially guarantee yearly benefit increases in all but the most dire of economic conditions, resulted in continuous annual COLAs until 2009, when, for the first time, the CPI actually dropped below the previous year’s baseline. In 2010 the CPI once again failed to rise above the 2008 level, resulting in a second year with no COLA.

Despite the nation’s continuing economic woes, the CPI managed to finally climb above the 2008 level in the third quarter of this fiscal year, which triggered an automatic COLA for all Social Security recipients in 2012. While the size of the increase is tiny – and for many recipients will be offset by Medicare premium increases — it’s at least a step in the right direction for people with disabilities who rely on SSDI and SSI to meet their monthly needs.

To learn about the amount of the increase, click here.

After months of legislative gridlock, both houses of Congress finally managed to pass, and President Obama has signed, the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act of 2011, clearing the way for an additional three years of federal funding for autism research and treatment. The act, which was originally signed into law in 2006, provides the majority of federal funding for autism research, and was slated to expire at the end of September. Despite overwhelming support from both parties, four Republican senators held up the bill, but they backed down after co-sponsors agreed to request a report from the Government Accountability Office that would review expenditures on autism research.

Millions of American families deal with autism every day. Since the 2006 act became law, the prevalence of autism has risen to 1 in 110 children, and 1 in every 70 boys. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the disorder a public health emergency.

Passage of the new act, which authorizes $693 million over the next three years, was a tribute to grassroots organizing, according to the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

“Our success in no small part was made possible by the tens of thousands of grassroots advocates who insisted that Congress hear their voices,” said Autism Speaks President Mark Roithmayr. “Congress listened.” 

To read more about the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act, click here and to read Autism Speaks’ article on the Act, click here.

In an op-ed piece that has garnered a lot of attention, a Texas economics professor recently proposed extending disability benefits to “ugly” people. While it is unclear whether the piece was meant to serve as a metaphor for government benefits run amok or as a serious proposal to address a statistically meaningful disparity in lifetime earnings between good-looking people and the rest of us, in either case the proposal highlights the delicate balancing act faced by legislators when they seek to expand or contract potentially life-altering benefits.

Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas and the author of the new book Beauty Pays, explained his theory on the New York Times’ opinion-editorial page. Citing one particular study that showed that an average American worker who was assessed by impartial observers as “ugly” earned approximately $230,000 less over his lifetime than a worker considered “attractive,” Hamermesh makes the case that helping “ugly” people succeed could be good for the economy.

While the study’s findings may not be earth-shaking, Hamermesh’s solution has created waves. He suggests protecting “ugly” people from discrimination through “small extensions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ugly people could be allowed to seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies in overcoming the effects of discrimination. We could even have affirmative-action programs for the ugly.”

Hamermesh acknowledges that his ideas, while easily implemented legislatively, are probably a non-starter politically. However, his op-ed piece certainly illustrates the problem legislators confront when deciding whom to cover through disability programs. In fact, by seeming to trivialize equal opportunity legislation, Hemermesh’s argument may run counter to the interests of many people in the disability community, especially those with mental illnesses, who have fought for years to gain benefits despite public skepticism about their particular conditions.

To read the full op-ed in the Times, click here.