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1. Decrease in confidence while driving

2. Difficulty turning to see when backing up 

3. Riding the brake

4. Easily distracted while driving

5. Other drivers often honk horns

6. Incorrect signaling

7. Difficulty parking within a defined space

8. Hitting curbs

9. Scrapes or dents on the car, mailbox or garage

10. Failure to notice traffic signs

Easter Seals Crossroads understands how driving affects a person's independence. We have both a clinical and behind-the-wheel assessment of a client’s potential to drive a motor vehicle independently. Our driving specialists are occupational therapy practitioners that have the knowledge base to understand progressive age-related conditions and life changes that can affect driving. Read more about our Driver Evaluation and Training Program or contact us today to find out if an evaluation is right for you or a loved one. 

It’s always nice to have some helping hands! Recently, a group of students from St. Monica School came to Easter Seals Crossroads as a part of a Service Day on behalf of the Joseph Maley Foundation. Ten seventh and eighth grade students spent almost three hours pulling weeds and raking out twelve yards of play soft mulch around our playground. We will be using the playground soon during Parents’ Night Out, our Friday night respite program, and CampAbility, our summer day-camp for children with disabilities ages 4 to 11.

Does your group want to volunteer at Easter Seals Crossroads? Contact Tessa Barnard, Volunteer Coordinator, at tbarnard@eastersealscrossroads.org.

Today's guest post was written by Crystal Paschal, who is a preschool teacher, writer, and mom of two boys. She is a regular contributor at Prime Parents Club, board secretary of The Monkey Do Project, and blogs about family life in Indianapolis at Mom For Less.

In 2007 a very special little girl entered my preschool classroom, and my heart. She was two years old, but was non-verbal, did not walk, and was not eating solid foods at the time. As I got to know this beautiful child and her parents, a friendship quickly formed between our families that has lasted to this day.

Today that little girl is a beautiful seven-year-old, and while some of her previous conditions have resolved, new ones have emerged, and she still faces challenges every day. She has taught me much about patience and perseverance, and being close with her family has taught me much about being a friend to special needs parents. These families need love and support as they work to make the best decisions for their child. Here are some ways you can help:

Learn the child’s story. Each special needs child has a story that is unique. Find out your friends’ story – how did they arrive at a diagnosis? What types of treatment does the child receive? What victories has the family achieved? What struggles are they still facing? What things are difficult for the child, and what things do they absolutely love? Listen and learn with the goal of understanding.

Don’t try to fix the child. Your friend needs your support; they don’t need you to “solve” their “problems.” Keep the advice to a minimum, and just listen when your friend needs to talk. Remember that there aren’t any “cure-alls” when it comes to the various issues special needs children face. What worked for your aunt, your sister, or your boss may not work for everyone. If you do find information that might be helpful to your friend, share it in a way that invites their input – try “What do you think about this news article?” versus “This is what you should be doing for your child.”

Let your kids play with their kid. One of the biggest fears that special needs parents face is that their child will not have friends, or will be mistreated by others. Something as simple as setting up a play date can help alleviate these fears. My kids and my friend’s kids play together regularly, and they all love each other like brothers and sisters. Play dates like this help a special needs child feel loved and accepted, and they help your children learn that people with special needs are people, too.

Give your friend a break. Take your friend out for coffee when she’s had a bad day. Offer to baby-sit so your friends can have a date night. Or just come over and hang out when that special needs parent needs another grown up to talk to. All parents need a break, but the demands of special needs parenting are especially challenging. Sometimes special needs parents just need a chance to recharge their batteries so they can face the challenges ahead. The gift of a night out can be blessing for both parent and child!

Listen. I can’t even begin to understand the things my friends go through as special needs parents. Most of the time I don’t have good advice to give, or a solution to the problems they’re facing. But I can be a listening ear. I can be a safe place where my friends can share all of their frustration without any fear of judgment. Sometimes that is the best gift you can give.

Special needs parents are just like us “regular” parents; they love their children and they want what is best for them. They challenges they face may be different, but our hearts are all the same. By being a friend to a special needs parent and providing the emotional support they need, you can make a world of difference in their lives and the lives of their children. And if you’re like me, you’ll find that those special kids and their families will continually bless you in return.

Everyone knows about camp. It is a place where you can get away and participate in activities you like to do, or venture off into new activities you never done before. Where the water seems bluer, the grass seems greener, and the air smells cleaner. Just like the campers, camps come in different forms: you can attend a day camp, a summer camp, or an over night camp. Surrounded by your peers, fun, and Mother Nature seems like something everyone should get a chance to take part of.

But what about camps that are accessible for individuals with disabilities?

Easter Seals Crossroads provides a few of there own camps that cater to people with disabilities. For example, Camp R.O.C.K.S. is a 5-night/6-day outdoor camp designed for young people with autism who are 10-18 years old. Age-appropriate activities will allow campers the opportunity to enjoy an outdoor camping experience in a fun, nurturing environment. Activities include science exploration, swimming, nature hikes, horseback riding, canoeing and much more.

Also, Easter Seals Crossroads has CampAbility. CampAbility is a day camp that provides parents and guardians the proper care of their child/teenager with a disability while the guardians are at work. The camp will consist of three sessions at two different locations. Each session will allow children with special needs the opportunity to explore sensorimotor experiences, expand communication skills, and enhance social skills in a fun, nurturing environment. Activities will include theme days, field trips and guest visitors.

Here's what Joanne said about her son, Anthony, who has attended CampAbility for three years now:

My son Anthony is almost eight years old and has autism. He is pretty severely affected by it, he's mostly non verbal and has a lot of sensory issues. He attends Little Star Center in Carmel, and has for almost four years. Little Star used to be closed for a week around July 4 in the summer and it was very hard on Anthony to be out of a routine. I think I found CampAbility through a website search and I emailed Jane Dias at Easter Seals Crossroads. She was beyond helpful and advised me about every single aspect of the camp. We felt really welcomed and comfortable every minute that we were there. Two summers ago I was pregnant with my fourth baby, and had a three year old and two year old who I was lugging around and everyone made it really easy for me to pick Anthony up. Last summer, Anthony was able to bring an ABA therapist with him from Little Star and he had GREAT success, including with the horseback riding. We have wanted Anthony to try that for a while and we were so happy he was able to do it in such a great environment. I think the horseback riding was his favorite thing, although I know he loved being in the sensory room, his therapist talked about it quite a bit.

I can't believe what a great deal it is, and that Anthony gets to go to a day camp just like a regular boy. It means a lot to us to have Anthony be able to have experiences that a typical eight year old boy would have. We love the counselors and the administrators and I tell everyone I know how great it is.

There are other camps that share the same passion as Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana. These camps also help provide intriguing and fun experiences to individuals with disabilities. To view other accessible camps you can visit http://www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/leisure/camps.html and scroll to the state you are located in.

If you have any more questions about the camps Easter Seals Crossroads provides please contact us today!

The American Occupational Therapy Associated held its Annual Conference and Expo in San Diego, California April 24-28. Our very own occupational therapist Claire Werner was there to present her graduate research project titled “The Transition Experience from High School to Adult Life for Individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

Claire Werner, an Indianapolis native, just started working with us in February after receiving her graduate degree from University of Indianapolis. Her qualitative graduate school project was the basis of the presentation, which took 2 ½ years from start to finish, including an in-depth literature review regarding the research already out there.

Claire along with her research team, which included Dr. Jennifer Fogo, PhD, OTR as the principal investigator and 5 other University of Indianapolis graduate OT students, interviewed four individuals on the autism spectrum to find out what strengths and weaknesses they had in regards to the transition experience from high school to adult life and how social and environmental factors affected that transition. Similar studies have interviewed the parents, but Claire and the research team agreed that hearing first-hand from the participants would provide different feedback than what has been discovered in other related studies.

The outcome of the interviews led to interesting findings:

• Participants who knew what their strengths and weaknesses were identified them as having self-knowledge; some participants also had self-awareness where they acknowledged personal skills and abilities. The research team realized there was a continuum of awareness from self-knowledge to self-awareness, and where they were at on the continuum impacted how successful they were with their transition experience.

• Participants were able to identify social and cultural norms – one individual noticed that his peers were moving on to college, while he was still living at home with limited financial means or a driver’s license, and therefore he felt “stuck” because he wasn’t there yet.

• Each participant varied on their age of diagnosis with autism and this impacted what services and support they had in high school and during their transition to adulthood.

• There were environmental/contextual influences that positively or negatively impacted their transition experience with respect to attending post-secondary education, having a steady job or living independently successfully.

• All of the participants were able to identify resources available to them during the transition process, however the degree to which they utilized them and their feelings about the effectiveness of them varied.

So what does this research mean?

• Early intervention is key – identifying developmental delays in a child early on can mean that they have greater access to support services such as physical, occupational and speech therapy and later Vocational Rehabilitation. Access to these services can positively impact their transition experience.

• Think globally – children with autism will become adults with autism, so we need not think in the moment of this day and time, but what steps can be put in place now that will assist a person in the future.

• Be an advocate – bullying was an issue for some of the participants the research team interviewed, so if you see something, say something, and know that a person on the autism spectrum is still a person with the same emotions as everyone else. Also, advocate to provide them the support they need to successfully transition into adulthood.

Do you have questions about transitioning from high school to college or the workplace? Easter Seals Crossroads has several different opportunities for everyone’s goal, whether it’s peer to peer college mentoring, internship programs or employment services. Contact us today for more information!

Do you know how you'd access a your email on a computer if you lost your vision? How would you read an online breaking news article? 

May 9 is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), where web developers across the globe try to raise awareness on making websites accessible to people who need to access technology in different ways. The idea came from Joe Devon, a developer who has worked with American Idol, AT&T, and JP Morgan, just to name a few of his projects. 

Devon's proclamation is this: "On this day, every web developer will be urged to test at least one page on their site in an accessibility tool. After fixing up the page, they are urged to blog about what they changed and inspire others to follow suit."

Devon encourages developers to host meet-ups to generate conversation around accessibility. He admits that he himself has little knowledge of screen readers and accessibility tactics, but that's not an excuse to ignore the issue. He encourages developers to meet with people who use screen readers and talk to them about how they navigate websites and what their common frustrations are with accessibility. 

What can YOU do today?

• LIKE the Global Accessibility Awareness Day Facebook page and join in on the discussion

• Developers and web designers should read this article from WebAIM about Designing for Screen Reading Compatibility 

• Leave a comment on Joe Devon's blog post explaining why you're an advocate for web accessibility

• Watch this video from the INDATA Project about how screen readers have advanced over the last few decades

• Experience accessibility first hand - go without your mouse for an hour, surf the web with a screen reader, learn about mobile accessibility features. Find more ideas from GAAD here: http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/participate.html 

• Read this guest blog from Lou Fioritto, co-founder of Braille Works, as he describes how he uses a screen reader

• Tweet about what you're doing today with the hashtag #GAAD

Why is this important to Easter Seals Crossroads?

Our mission is to improve the lives of children and adults with special needs, disabilities or challenges by promoting inclusion, independence and dignity. It is important that our community is educated so they can be advocates for web accessibility. The Internet provides a wealth of information, and it's important that web accessibility is taken into account for every website, new or old, so that individuals with vision impairments have equal access to that information.

After you've participated in Global Accessibility Awareness Day, come back to us and leave a comment explaining how this experience has changed or altered your view of web accessibility!

Occupational therapy can play a key role in helping a child meet developmental milestones. There are times when it is appropriate for an occupational therapist to visit a family in their home, or times when a child needs to visit Easter Seals Crossroads to use specific equipment in our sensory and therapy rooms, but some therapy activities can be conducted by a parent during their child's normal daily routine.

We asked two of our occupational therapists, Teri Maloney and Claire Werner, for a short list of therapy activities that can be done during activities of daily living. 

1. Utilize bath time for more than just cleaning. Use bath bubbles or bath crayons to practice letter formation and handwriting in a fun environment. 

2. Also during bath time, allow your child to practice hand strengthening by wringing the bath water out of a washcloth.

3. Use tweezers instead of forks during dinner and pretend they are chopsticks! Another great way to practice hand strengthening.

3. Cooking can take a lot of upper body strength, so bring your child into the kitchen and allow them to measure and pour liquids or stir the cookie dough batter. (Then reward them with a cookie!)

4. Yoga is a great way to help strengthen the upper body and the core, and can also be very calming for kids with high arousal sensory issues. Practice yoga near bedtime as part of a routine to get ready to sleep.

5. Learning to hold a toothbrush in one hand and squeeze toothpaste with the other helps a child practice bilateral coordination.

How do you integrate therapy into your child's daily routine? Leave a comment in our blog post and let us know! 

Are you considering occupational therapy for your child, or are you unsure if your child is in need of therapy services? Consider taking the free online Ages & Stages Questionnaire, a tool that will help you see if your child's developmental progress is on time.

This morning, Mayor Greg Ballard signed the Disability Business Enterprise Proposal, which creates a program to encourage participation from disability-owned businesses on public works projects. 

"By creating the Disability Business Enterprise Program we are committing the leadership of our city to do business with companies owned by people who have disabilities," said Council Vice President John Barth. "This is a group with traditionally high rates of unemployment and it is important to incentivize people with disabilities to become entrepreneurs."

The Department of Minority & Women Business Development of the City of Indianapolis strives to enhance the city's growth and economic stability through promotion of contracting and procurement opportunities for minority- , women- , and veteran-owned businesses. One out five individuals reported having a disability of some kind in the 2010 Census, and only 41% of the working-age are employed. 

What does this mean for Easter Seals Crossroads?

Our Employment Division assists individuals who want to secure and/or maintain employment by providing services that match their needs, preferences, abilities and interests. Through a variety of programs, men and women with disabilities become more independent through various types of employment. With the implementation of the new disability-owned business certification along with the MWBD, Easter Seals Crossroads can now assist budding entrepreneurs with their dream of owning and running their own business by helping them find employees through the Employment Division.

Not only can business owners capitalize on the disabled-owned certification, those who are minorities, women, or veterans with a disability have a better opportunity of receiving contracts because you are allowed to be certified for more than one category. For example, you can be minority woman who was injured in combat and is now disabled. You now qualify for all the categories under the MWBD certification rules, which puts you in the front running for all contracts you bid on. 

Today's blog post was written by Marketing Ally Chris Elkins.

There’s new research in how our brains work that shows how we can improve our memory, speed up how we process information, and achieve many other gains by training our brains. The online exercises from Posit Science’s BrainHQ are provided in Easter Seals Train Your Brain Challenge and give a useful and fun way to train our brains.

Posit Science’s BrainHQ exercises have been the subject of multiple, independent, university-based studies resulting in more than 70 published articles in peer-reviewed journals that clearly note the broad array of benefits both in cognition and quality of life for people who take the time to regularly use these compelling online exercises. These benefits include significant gains in brain processing speed, attention, and memory, as well as improvements in standard measures of health-related quality of life, functional independence, mood and confidence. Brain training tools also show real promise for people living with neurological conditions, illness and other disabilities.

As a trusted resource for people with disabilities and special needs, Easter Seals is teaming up with Posit Science to offer four of their scientifically proven, online cognitive exercises for free. The exercises were quite easy to understand, but the more stages you beat, the harder it is to focus on the objects. This helps the brain retain information at a faster rate when speeding up each level. Anyone can visit the website, click on the link and try these fun, new brain-challenging exercises.

Please visit Easter Seals’ website to complete the Train Your Brain Challenge and give us your response at the bottom.          

Today's blog was written by Marketing Ally Chris Elkins.

Today's post was written by Lou Fioritto, co-founder of Braille Works, a company with a mission to make the world a more readable place. Lou has been blind since birth, and in this blog he describes how the evolution of Braille technology has changed the way he communicates.

I have been thinking lately about how technology is changing the world for blind people.

Now I have to disclose to you upfront that I’m far from being the most knowledgeable guy on this topic and what I’m writing is only what I’ve personally experienced. Many people have greatly surpassed me so do not limit your potential & thinking from this article.

I have been blind my entire life and learned braille in the first grade on a slate and stylus. Once I got a little older I moved on to using a Perkins brailler which is a braille writing machine with nine keys that looks somewhat similar to an older style typewriter. The keys on either end are used for line advances (right) and back-spaces (left). The center key is used for spaces just like the “spacebar” on a typical computer keyboard. The remaining six keys can be used in a multitude of different combinations to create braille letters and words.

Slate and Stylus shown above; Perkins Brailler shown below

Throughout my years in school and college I took class notes and did all my writing using one of these methods. To turn-in homework or reports I used a standard typewriter and might add was pretty good at it.

Then things began to take a turn………

Talking synthetic computer software was introduced in the late 70's and continued to get better during the 80's and 90's.

I didn't take much advantage of this technology until 1989 when I bought my first “Braille'n'Speak”. This unit had a braille-style keyboard and only spoke what I had entered into it. I could use a disk drive to transfer information from the unit to my computer or vice versa. Although this was a great new tool for me and other blind individuals, it was still slow and quite cumbersome

As talking software improved I was trained to use Freedom Scientific’s JAWS Screen Reading Software. JAWS impressed me so I started using it more and more often as time went on. For example I am writing this very blog using my laptop while listening to the screen reader. I still make the occasional mistake or typo so when I finish articles they are emailed to Jeff, Braille Works social media guru, and he cleans them up for web publishing.