New Castle County Head Start, a federally-funded education program for children ages 3-5 with disabilities or who come from low-income homes, has expanded its services to families of children aged 0-3. It now offers supports such as weekly home visits to monitor physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. This comes in response to multiple Delaware school districts offering low- to no-cost pre-K programs for children with special needs.
Delawareans with disabilities, such as autism, seizure disorders and hearing or visual impairments, now have the option to include medical indicators on their driver’s licenses or state ID cards. The medical indicators could serve a vital role in interactions with law enforcement or first responders and individuals with disabilities by increasing accessibility to medical information.
Throughout the week, groups of volunteers from Sallie Mae, the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences and Fusion Fitness are helping with the construction of the all-abilities Preston’s Playground, in Newark. The playground will have wheelchair-accessible rubber paving instead of mulch, and equipment including an adaptive merry-go-round, swings and monkey bars. A ribbon cutting ceremony for the playground is planned for August 29.
UD assistant professor of biomedical engineering, Curtis Johnson and a doctoral student, Grace McIlvain, have found differences in the stiffness of adolescent brains in comparison to adult brains. Their findings may be able to help clinicians assess development and cognitive issues in teens. McIlvain is also working on a project to study the brains of children with cerebral palsy and has plans for another project studying children with autism.
The recent effort to reduce the use of plastic straws across the country has found its way to the Eastern Shore, with Ocean City and other local restaurants and businesses supporting the movement in order to decrease the amount of trash in the ocean. However, disability rights activists stress that the accessibility of plastic straws are necessary for those with limited jaw control and substitutes for plastic straws aren’t entirely safe.
