Is Your Website Accessible?

Is Your Website Accessible?

Is your website accessible? 1 in 6 people face using the internet with a disability. WAVE Web Accessibility Evalution tool is a great way to assess and look closely at what you need to address for your website. WAVE® is a suite of evaluation tools that helps authors make their web content more accessible to individuals with disabilities. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. Our philosophy is to focus on issues that we know impact end users, facilitate human evaluation, and to educate about web accessibility. Check it out at https://wave.webaim.org/...
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What Are Medicaid Waivers?

What Are Medicaid Waivers?

We are presently struggling to navigate through Medicaid Waivers in the State of Texas for our son (intellectual disability, autism, ADHD, DMDD - dysruptive mood disregulation disorder). We've been working for the YES (Youth Empowerment Services) Waiver with MHMR in Denton, Texas since April 2018 and are still waiting for services to begin. We were on the waiting list for a while. Then we were accepted to see if we are eligible - that process is taking months. There is a discrepancy with his IQ which is another story. WHAT ARE MEDICAID WAIVERS? Medicaid Waivers help provide services to people who would otherwise be in a nursing home or hospital to receive long-term care in the community. Although there are waivers for many conditions, our focus is towards waivers for people who have intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, and autism. WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF WAIVERS? There are several types of waivers: Community Living Assistance and Support Services (CLASS): gives home and community-based supports to...
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Context of Play

Context of Play

When our son was diagnosed with autism and behavior & intellectual challenges several years ago, one of the main points the doctor (who had 20+ years experience of working with children) made to us was that everything we wanted our son to truly and meaningfully understand should be wrapped in the context of “play”. That advice has proved consistently true as our son has grown. Successful communication with a special needs child, preteen, teen, young adult, or adult who deals with autism and behavior & intellectual challenges is naturally and sincerely playful. It receives the most notable response. I believe it makes the strongest connections and gains trust with the child you love and you want he or she to know that you love them....
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