This article describes the potential impact that state guardianship laws may have on the transition planning process for students identified with intellectual and developmental disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Improvement Act. The authors utilize a disability studies framework to describe how the goals of…

There is a direct link connecting President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., to the causes of liberty, consent, choice, the least restrictive environment, and genuine community presence for people with intellectual and related developmental disabilities. This article connects the meaning of liberty in those civil rights movements to the…

Current pedagogical approaches recognize literacy as a social practice and yet school-based conceptualizations continue to dominate understandings of literacy learning of individuals with intellectual disability. Such understandings lead to local or everyday literacy practices being devalued and overlooked. Thus, for adults with intellectual…

Reading and literacy are important not only for instrumental reasons such as knowing exit signs and recognizing initial consonants but also have tremendous human functioning implications in areas such as initiating and sustaining friendships, communicating care and affection, and enhancing work, leisure, and play. Many people with intellectual…

The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act and the No Child Left Behind Act requires that students with extensive support needs have access to, participate in, and make progress on the general curriculum along with their grade-level general education peers. This article suggests that the terms used in this…

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the author was falsely labeled as a student with mental retardation, a label that controlled her educational experience for 8 years. In the early 1980s, she completed traditional university licensure programs to become both a general and a special education teacher. In this article, the author provides the perspective…

This article presents a testimony to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last April 6, 2005 by Rud Turnbull, the father of Jay Turnbull, a 37-year-old man with significant mental retardation (measured IQ of approximately 40, mental age of approximately 6), rapid cycling bipolar illness, autism, an irregular heartbeat,…

Research indicates that peer interaction can have a substantial impact on the lives of adolescents with disabilities. However, social interaction among adolescents with intellectual disabilities and their general education peers typically occurs infrequently in secondary schools. This paper provides a critical analysis of twenty-six empirical…