Disability Access News

A taxi company based in Walsall in the West Midlands has been ordered to pay £665 in fines, costs and compensation after it refused to pick up a blind couple with their guide dogs.

When Paul and Susan Nicholls telephoned ABS Aldridge taxi company after attending their daughter’s wedding in June 2007, a member of staff at the taxi firm refused to pick them up.

When they telephoned again, they were told they would be charged double the regular fare to use a minibus. As a result, the owner of the taxi firm, Suhil Dad, was fined for contravening section 31A of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

The Age February 19, 2008 - 8:37AM

Business needs to get over a fear of employing people with mental illness, the federal government says.

Of the 7,012 people receiving a disability support pension, only 10 per cent are participating in the workforce and almost one quarter have a mental illness, parliamentary secretary for disabilities and children's services, Bill Shorten, said.

He said the government was committed to lifting the number of people with a mental illness in the workforce.

"The challenge is to deal with employer-phobia about employing people with mental illness," Mr Shorten told ABC Radio.

"Some people think that if you employ someone with a mental illness in a workplace that they will be dangerous, or some people think that other staff will get upset.

"The reality is that people with mental illness are capable of participating and holding down work and contributing, and we have just got to get over the phobias."

Mr Shorten said he would talk with business to allay employers' concerns.

The most important part of that was ensuring mentors were available to provide assistance, he said.

Meanwhile in the ACT on Tuesday, Mr Shorten will launch the 100th MyTime (MyTime) Peer Support Group for parents of young children with a chronic medical condition or disability.

"As anyone who has had children with disabilities knows, it's a stressful experience - it is a loving experience but it's stressful," Mr Shorten said.

"So the opportunity for families to get together - for their kids to be together but also for parents to be together to get the sense you are not on your own - I think it's fantastic."

In 2006-07, the Howard government committed $9 million during four years towards the MyTime program.

"The budget contains some money for four years of funding," Mr Shorten said.

"Obviously the government is very committed to fighting inflation.

"On the other hand, the government also understands that programs like this are very effective for their dollars."

Faced with limited funding, some students with Aspergers drop out of school. By Denise Ryan.

THOUSANDS of young Victorians with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism have dropped out of mainstream high schools and are spending their lives locked in their bedrooms watching television or on the PC, say autism experts.

These young people have serious problems interacting with others and coping with school because of their disability but receive little State Government-funded help because they do not meet the strict criteria for assistance.

Bruce Tonge, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Monash University, says many 16-year-olds with an autism spectrum disorder drop out from about year 9 but are not eligible for adult autism services because they do not have an intellectual disability.

"They can then spend years in their room staring at the computer, becoming increasingly depressed and sometimes aggressive with their parents," Professor Tonge says.

He says about 70% of autistic children have an intellectual disability and attend special schools, while about 30% are of normal intelligence but can have ritualised behaviours and serious problems with social interaction. The latter group, diagnosed with Aspergers or high-functioning autism, mostly attend mainstream schools but can find this extremely stressful without assistance.

"It is inaccurate to use IQ as the benchmark as to whether a person gets services or not. Those with average IQ may have poor ability to function in the community yet get no help," Professor Tonge says.

Meredith Ward, the president of the Autistic Family Support Association, says the Government does not want to broaden its criteria for funding to include students with Aspergers or high-functioning autism.

"The rationale seems to be rationing of services rather than meeting the appropriate educational needs of every student."

A spokesman for the Department of Human Services, when asked why teenagers diagnosed with Aspergers do not get adequate help, said many receive services funded by the department. The spokesman said schools make decisions at a local level about how to support such students, perhaps by employing a teacher's aide or a speech pathologist.

Ms Ward, the parent of a 12-year-old with high-functioning autism and the manager of the state plan for Autism Victoria, described this response as "mischievous and inaccurate".

"High-functioning children without an intellectual disability have to prove a significant language deficit or have severe behavioural problems to get any help. Most don't qualify," she says.

A friend of a friend knows this guy, David Morris, who he says I should do a story on. He has some physical disabilities, I am told, but they don't hold him back at all; he's a regular guy who is an inspiration to everyone he meets.

So we set up an interview at the offices of Omni Brokerage, the investment real estate firm in the south end of the valley where Morris works. I arrive first, wondering exactly what disabilities we're talking about here, and then Morris walks in and it's obvious. He has short arms. His hands hang at chest level, about where your elbow should be.

"I have TAR syndrome. I was born with it," Morris explains, anticipating my obvious first question as we shake hands. "TAR stands for a very complicated medical term." (Thrombocytopenia with absent radius, to be exact, an extremely rare genetic condition with an incidence of just 0.42 per 100,000 live births. To get it is like hitting the Powerball lottery, only in reverse.)

TAR doesn't just mean you go through life without forearms; it also condemns you to a low blood platelet count, meaning bleeding is hard to control and interior varicose veins can be a problem. And in Morris' case it also means you are born without kneecaps, so your legs are slightly twisted and you run with a slight list

If you or I woke up tomorrow with TAR, we'd pull up the covers and refuse to get out of bed.

Not Morris. He's taking a break from his duties as an accounting specialist at Omni for our interview. Then it's back to the books. And after work, there's no telling what he might do. Maybe play a rousing game of soccer, or hop on his bicycle with the specially equipped extra long handlebars for a ride through the woods, or do a little backpacking, or some noncontact kickboxing, or tackle a ropes course, or go skydiving.

Morris has done all of the above in his first 33 years, along with a whole bunch of other things a lot of people with regular-length arms and the normal allotment of platelets have not.

Not bad for a guy who can't tie his own shoes.

"I can put my socks on. I've figured that one out," he says. "But tying my shoes — I can't quite stretch that far."

As he says this, he casts a sly look down at his shoes. They have shoelaces, which are tied, but they are also slip-ons, which means he can take the shoes on and off without touching the laces.

Morris smiles. There's more than one way to keep your shoes tied.

This is clearly a man happy in his own arms. In his view, life has not shortchanged him. "I've never really thought anything was different about me," he says. "I'm sure it helped that I was born this way, that I thought this was normal. My parents (Paul and Sherry) always had the attitude of 'Do whatever.' I have a sister eight years older who also has TAR (her name is Kristy, she's married and lives in Georgia). She's amazing. She does everything. We just learned how to fall better."

This isn't to say Morris hasn't seen more than his share of the inside of hospital rooms and had more than his share of blood transfusions. But it's also to say that he's an Eagle Scout, a high school and college graduate (Timpview High School and Brigham Young University), an avid recreationalist, an expert trumpet player and a full-on lover of life.

"I like to think that where there's a will, there's a way," he says. "I used to say you could be anything you wanted to be, but I don't say that any more because there are always going to be limitations. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut."

He lets that statement hang in the air before adding, "You've got to be willing to adapt. And definitely do not feel sorry for yourself. Challenges are opportunities, not obstacles."

Morris says all of this without a touch of self-pity and, to be honest, only because a journalist is firing questions at him at point-blank range.

He'd rather talk about BYU sports or about the big event coming up in his life in two weeks — his marriage to Katrina Kenison.

"She's amazing," he says. "I can't believe how lucky I am."

As our interview ends, he adds, without being asked and as a kind of postscript, "You know, I don't get teased. I can only remember once when I got made fun of, and that was in junior high. I never feel like anyone's staring."

Staring, I find myself wondering after an hour with this guy, at what?