Observances
September - Deaf Awareness Month
October - National Disability Employment Awareness Month
October - National Dyslexia Awareness Month
October - ADHD Awareness Month
October - Down Syndrome Awareness Month
October - Blindness Awareness Month
March - National Disability Month
March 21 - World Down Syndrome Day
March 25 - Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day
April 2 - Autism Awareness Day
April - Parkinson's Awareness Month
May - Mental Health Awareness Month
May - National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month
ADA 30th Anniversary – This website provides a background on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) legislation, its purpose and history. It also covers other legislation regarding rights for people with disabilities.
ADL Curriculum Connections – The Anti- Defamation League provides lesson plans surrounding all aspects of people with disabilities for all grade levels. This curriculum seeks to challenge the myths and stereotypes that surround people with disabilities.
A Measure of Perceived Stigma in People with Intellectual Disability – The stigma of intellectual disability is often neglected by health professionals and researchers. Qualitative research has shown that people with intellectual disabilities are aware of the stigma of their disability and its social consequences.
Judy Heumann movie – Samuel Habib made this video for his final history and English project on the American Dream and the disability rights movement.
Kids Included Together (KIT) – KIT strives to help the world see the ability in every child. KIT helps others meaningfully include kids with disabilities through inclusion training, policy development and sharing best practices. KIT has created several free inclusion resources including videos, tip sheets, checklists and booklets.
Museum of disABILITY History: Educational Resources – This site provides extensive lessons plans, with worksheets and readings, on the history of people with disabilities, including the ADA of 1990. The lesson plans based off of the New York State curriculum also includes quizzes and other resources for different age groups.
Understanding Our Differences – UOD offers disability awareness education programs to third through fifth grade students, with the goal of ensuring that all children understand from an early age that people with disabilities should be respected and included.
Sesame Street Toolkit – With Julia’s introduction to the cast, Sesame Street can be a great way to talk about disability issues. Julia is a child with autism and openly talks about her experiences in a way that children can understand. Their website showcases many different lessons for young children.
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools – This website is dedicated to the Unified Champion Schools program that builds on Special Olympics’ values, principles, practices, experiences and impacts to shape a generation that welcomes everyone. This programming promotes social inclusion in schools to ensure special education and general education students are equitably engaged.
Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools High School Playbook – This resource provides many tips and resources to make high schools socially inclusive.
Special Olympics Unified Physical Education Resource – This resource contains information that can be used in a physical education curriculum.
Stigma and Intellectual Disability: A Review of Related Measures and Future Directions – The theoretical construct of stigma has received much attention in psychiatric disability research, leading to the development of widely used measures to assess stigma change. The study of stigma has not received the much attention for people with intellectual disabilities. This manuscript evaluates existing measures of intellectual disability stigma through a systematic review of the literature.
Teaching Tolerance – Teaching Tolerance showcases the shared struggles and the intersectionality shard by people with disabilities and African Americans. This includes lesson plans for elementary, middle and high school students.
Who I Am Outreach – This toolkit talks about people with disabilities living life in various roles. Produced by the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy, this toolkit includes videos and stories about people with disabilities.
HEATH Resource Center – The HEATH Resource Center is a web-based clearinghouse that serves as an information exchange of educational resources, support services and opportunities. The HEATH Resource Center gathers, develops and disseminates information in the form of resource papers, fact sheets, website directories, newsletters, and resource materials.
20 Tips for Teaching an Accessible Online Course – A resource from DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology)