I just want to start by saying that there’s no other influence that could make me not enjoy a place if my grandchildren are present and having fun. The park was definitely fun. It was also very clean. The attractions and food options were of high quality and entertaining. The shows we saw were well-done.

Of course, here on this web site, the focus is on how well an establishment like Six Flags Discovery Kingdom does when it comes to accommodating people with disabilities. If I were giving a grade, it would have been a D.

So, here comes the nits I have to pick. If you’re waiting still for the Saga of the Soda, it’s still later.

We arrived in the early afternoon. Across the street from the park is the county fairgrounds. The fairgrounds parking lot also serves as overflow for the park. By the time we arrived, the regular parking lot was full. Coming from the north along Fairgrounds Drive was a traffic jam, complete with an injury accident. It was caused by people trying to get into the park’s parking lot. They were being diverted across the street to the fairgrounds.

We happened to know that thanks to cell phones and our son-in-law who was guaranteed a spot at the park because of his season pass. We went directly to the fairgrounds lot and saved ourselves some time.

As we waited in a long line to the front, I asked the person directing traffic if there were spots reserved for disabled people. She didn’t know. I asked the person taking my money. He didn’t know. I asked the person along the route to the parking area. He didn’t know.

So, we parked where they directed us, even with my parking tag hanging from my mirror in plain site. My wife wiggled it at him so he could see it. He just kept waving us into a spot.

Of course, using it was risking a ticket. See California Travel Advice.

So, we walked down the long aisle towards the park and saw a row of cars parked against the fence. My wife said, “Gee. We could have parked there.”

The man guarding the spots curtly said, “You have to have a disabled tag.”

“We do,” I said, annoyed.

Did I mention it was a gravel parking lot and my cane sometimes slipped on rock?

The path from the fairground parking lot to the front entrance is probably a good half-mile. Once you cross Fairgrounds Drive, it is asphalt. The troubling thing was that all along this path you could see faded paint on the asphalt surface where disabled parking once once. It had been replaced by the path to the front gate.

Why is it that establishments consider the disabled parking spaces the most expendable when things change? See Piles of Shame.

Inside the gate are some lockers. I had been carrying a backpack with medications and other stuff I might need but didn’t want to carry around. The locks are all electronic. You pay for a locker. The computer opens it for you and prints out a receipt with a code. When you want to open it, you go back to the computer console, put in your code, and it unlocks your locker. I made the mistake of putting the receipt in my wallet and then putting my wallet in the locker. That was my fault.

I went, hobbling with my cane, back to the main entrance area looking for a human being to help me. There were ticket-takers and photographers. I interrupted a ticket-taker and asked for help. They called someone to come help me.

Once we got that out of the way, we had a very enjoyable time with our family. My daughter and son-in-law wanted to ride on the whitewater ride, so we took the kids to watch Shouka. We got there late and had to sit in the back. My son-in-law helped.

We had to leave the stroller down below. When the show was over, which was great, we had to wait for our son-in-law to come help us with the kids. Before he got there, a security person told us we had to leave.

There we were with three kids under five, including an infant less than one year old. I had my cane, a backpack, and a hefty diaper bag. The nearest exit was down a flight of stairs. My wife and I had to get all of that down the stairs without any help. It was touch and go.

While our grandchildren rode a little elephant ride, I waited by a souvenir shop. In the shade of the shop was a nice woman in a skooter. I asked her about her experience there. She said that they got to park in a disabled space but that the shuttles that came to pick them up couldn’t accommodate her skooter. Finally a shuttle came that could. I gave her this web site’s address. I hope she will visit.

So, now what you’ve been waiting for:

The Saga of the Soda

I noticed people wearing a wrist band that said they were entitled to All-You-Can-Drink soda. I found a place that offered them. You pay $12.99 and get a green cup and one of the wrist bands.

I showed my wrist to the cashier. There was no way the band was going to fit around my wrist. My wrist is not just big because I am overweight. It has always been big, even when I was skinny. The last time I bought a wristband for unlimited something-or-other, it popped right off.

The cashier attached my wrist band to the handle of the soda. I assumed this was standard procedure when someone’s wrist is large like mine.

I planned on drinking a lot. I’m not accustomed to California weather and I like to keep hydrated.

When I was ready for a refill, I went into an area with a lot of food stands. Remember that I have difficulty walking and use a cane. Even more difficult for me is standing. So, I looked for a stand that had a small line.

I handed my cup with the orange band on the handle. The man said, “I can’t refill that unless you wear it on your wrist.”

I showed him my wrist and explained to him why I wasn’t wearing the band. He stepped back and put his hands in the air like I had a gun aimed at him. “I can’t refill it!” he said adamantly. It seemed clear to me that he’d call security and have me arrested if I pressed it any further. I was scaring the poor guy, though I was calm throughout.

I went to find another food place that had a short line. It was around dinner time and there wasn’t any that I could have managed to stand in.

While looking around, I noticed a small booth with a security officer behind it. I went to him and explained it, asking if there was anything he could do. He acted as if he were sympathetic, but all he could offer was that I go all the way back to the front entrance and explain it at the Guest Relations counter. I pointed out that I was disabled and that walking that far and walking back to my family was going to be difficult. I asked if there was someone he could call. He couldn’t.

I thought about going back to the corn dog shack where I had been refused and asking them to call someone, but considering how the man there reacted, I didn’t want to scare him anymore. Am I really that scary?

So, I walked around for the rest of my visit with my worthless green cup. When my family left, I told them I was going to Guest Relations to complain. Of course, Guest Relations wasn’t really near to the front of the park.

You see, when you have to get somewhere with the aid of a cane or a walker, what seems close to others is not close to you. I was determined to at least have my say, even if nothing came of it.

I arrived at a small counter with one woman, Theresa. Guess what? There was a line and nowhere to sit without losing my place in line. So, I leaned on my cane and waited.

When my turn finally came, I explained what happened. Theresa couldn’t do anything about it either. Theresa tried to reach the person who sold me the drink but she wasn’t available. I showed her my receipt.

She made a phone call and said that a food supervisor was going to come and escort me to a food place that would refill my drink for me. When the food supervisor arrived, I was in a great deal of pain from standing in line and waiting for her. My family was outside the front gate waiting for me.

I told her that escorting me to a place to get a drink would have resulted in me getting exactly two drinks for my $12.99 and that I already had to walk back the half mile to my car with my backpack, cane, and drink. She offered to carry the drink with me to my car.

At this point, let me say that I wish I had gotten the name of this food supervisor. She really did a good job of listening and empathizing with me. She was the highlight of the entire incident.

I believe she was sincere about the offer. To my objection that I would get only two drinks, she offered to get me a second cup and carry them both back to the fairgrounds parking lot for me. I declined. My family was waiting and I just wanted to leave.

She took my name and address and promised to send me some complimentary coupons for things to make up for my trouble. As of this writing, I haven’t received them, but there is still time.

Recommendations for Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

• Either restore nearby parking places for the disabled or equip all of your shuttles with the ability to accommodate disabled people.
• Have more benches in the shade. I had to stand a lot because there was a shortage of shaded places to sit. The shortage seemed the worse in the kiddy play area. Do they think that only older people whose kids are grown are disabled and may need to sit? What about grandparents? What about young disabled people with children?
• Better yet, have seating around that is specifically reserved for elderly and disabled people. Buses do it. Parks can too. There was a dolphin encounter pool. It would have been easy enough to have about three benches facing the pool and a sign saying, “Please give preference for these seats to the elderly and people with disabilities.”
• I tried to ride a ride but couldn’t stand in the line. I couldn’t see if they would accommodate me because of my disability. They don’t even say what their policy is on their website. Instead, it says to contact Guest Relations. Poor lone Theresa will no doubt get to you when she can. Put the policy on the web site.
• Is it really running a guest relations department to have one person at the Guest Relations counter on a day that is so busy that parking overflows into the fairgrounds? Have more than one person at the counter.
• Have a roving guest relations person. I should have been able to expect that the security guard I spoke to could have made a call and someone could have come to me to help me with my problem.
• There were several food places that had one window operating. If a worker sees a person with a cane or walker standing in line to get food, someone should come out, take the person’s order, and let the person go sit down. I saw a lot of people standing around behind closed off counters.
• This one is for the fairgrounds parking staff, which I assume is not part of Six Flags. Train your people about where the disabled spaces are and have them keep in touch as to availability.
• To be truly disabled-friendly, have a roving disability ombudsman type of person.
• Get longer wrist bands for your all-you-can-drinks.
• Give the food supervisor who helped me a raise.

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Wal-mart has large sizes, but the largest I’ve ever found locally has been 2X. They don’t really have a big and tall section. They mix the larger sizes in with everything else. The signs on their clothing fixtures have one price for the garment and a higher price for the larger sizes. I think they ought out to have a big and tall men’s section.

I checked back at Kmart every few weeks to see if the larger sizes had returned. It wasn’t just the swim trunks that weren’t there. I searched for sweat pants for myself and a client who also needs larger sizes.

Then, about a month ago, I was in a Kmart and saw men’s swim trunks, basketball-style shorts, t-shirts, everything. Size went all the way up to 4X. 4X is adequate for me, though I sometimes like a 5X t-shirt just for roominess.

I don’t know why Kmart decided for awhile to not carry big and tall sizes, but I appreciate that they carry them now. So, they get a big Thank You from me.

So, here’s what I don’t understand:

Everyone is saying that obesity is rampant in America. As I look around, it seems to be true. As unfortunate as that may be, it seems that large clothing is a must. It seems to me that it would be smart for chains like Kmart to carry large sizes. Yet, there are dry spells in America where big people have to buy expensive clothing from catalogs and web sites.

One example of this strange state of affairs happened at the gym where I swim. They are always trying to sell t-shirts, hoodies, and such there. Walk in a gym sometime where they sell clothing and look at the sizes. 2X is about as high as you’ll find.

My gym orders a few items above 2X, but not many. By the time I look the table over, they’ve sold out of everything over 2X. I talked to the manager at my gym about it, and he said they couldn’t sell the larger sizes, so they don’t order them.

The funny thing is, after a certain t-shirt is around for awhile, they mark down all of that type to sell them. For weeks, these smaller sizes sit there unsold while people ask for the larger sizes. I don’t think that people really understand. I’ve speculated that it has to do with the large sizes costing more when they buy them and they can’t sell them at as much of a profit. I think it is shortsighted, though. Better to have articles of clothing that people want and will pay for than having to mark down all of the “regular” sizes.

I think that retailers are in denial about big people. Like many things we find unpleasant, people like to believe that America isn’t obese. Now, I think it would be good if we’d all live healthier. I’ve lost 50 pounds myself. I’m quite proud of that. I look forward to wearing smaller clothing.

Let me ask a ridiculous question that I think illustrates something important. What do they want really big people to do while they work at losing weight? Go naked until they can fit into the clothing that retailers want to sell?

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Definitions of abuse have been added or changed for:  abandonment, neglect, verbal abuse, financial exploitation, seclusion, wrongful use of chemical or physical restraint, and sexual abuse. While no provision in the state’s definition of abuse seems unreasonable, this expansion may create an enormous workload for investigators as new reports come in related to the new categories of abuse.

It drastically alters some of the ways I work. Under the new law, after the first of the year, I may not be able to do some of the things I once did while teaching social skills.

For example, as a vehicle for teaching social skills, I take clients into the community to learn how to not only behave in public, but to learn to “fit in” in social situations. The kinds of activities I have used have included miniature golfing, bowling, pool, and other competitive sports. I have taught clients the fine art of “trash talk” that men often do when playing competitive games.

The new definition of verbal abuse says that I am abusing a client if “threaten significant physical or emotional harm to a person with a developmental disability through the use of  (a) Derogatory or inappropriate names, insults, verbal assaults, profanity or ridicule; or (b) Harrassment, coercion, threats, intimidation, humiliation, mental cruelty or inappropriate sexual comments (ORS 430.735 16).”

Though it may be far-fetched, telling a client, while putting on our bowling shoes, that I am going to kick his butt could be overheard by another worker and reported to APS as verbal abuse. Hopefully, in that situation, APS would tell the other worker that making frivolous reports is wasting their time. Still, it could happen.

Perhaps, for me, the ones that make me the most nervous are the definitions of abandonment and neglect. I only contract for certain services with clients. I also am limited in what I may do for clients through social worker code of conduct and ethics. Life skills training and helping clients learn social skills through community inclusion is very different than being a social worker who sits at a desk doing things like intake interviews and other not in-the-trenches jobs.

The abandonment definition says that I am abusing my client if I ”…[desert or willfully forsake] a person with a developmental disability or [withdraw] or neglect of duties and obligations owed a person with a developmental disability by a caregiver or other person (ORS 430.735 1a) .”

For some clients I have a contract for assisting with finding stable housing. With some clients, especially those with credit problems or criminal backgrounds, finding housing in the Portland, Oregon area market is nigh impossible. For more on this, see my blog post, A Shameful Dearth.

I have often found myself in the position of working with a client on a winter day when the weather has turned nasty. The client has no money, no place to sleep, and no prospects for housing. With this new legislation, I wonder if I could be charged with abandoning a client if I don’t offer him a place to sleep at my home.

Doing this would be a pretty clear violation of social work ethics around dual relationships and professional objectivity. Hopefully, the word “owed” in the definition of abandonment will protect me, in that I don’t contract with clients to provide stable housing, only to help a client find it.

Believe me, it is pretty hard to drop a client off on a street corner knowing he doesn’t have a place to live and it’s going to be a cold, miserable night. I have such a client this winter. In this town, he can’t so much as find a room in a boarding house because of credit problems and criminal background.

I see many other potential pitfalls for me as a provider of services in the new definitions. I suppose I will need to adjust again. State rules, agency interpretations, billing requirements, billable definitions, and many other things keep changing for me. In a lot of ways, it seems like the state is deliberately trying to force workers like me to give up and go find another profession. With each new burden, I’m seriously considering it. If I quit, will I be charged with abandonment?

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A few months ago, right in the middle of her pregnancy, my daughter’s husband was transferred to California. We knew that we would be making the trip from Oregon when the time came. That happened yesterday.

Mother and child are doing well. He’s beautiful and we’re enjoying being here with the family. When we came to the hospital, I tried parking in regular parking spaces. They were all very narrow and required a bit of walking to get into the hospital.

So, I spied an open disabled space that was big enough for my vehicle and fairly close to the door. I parked there and hung my permit from the rearview mirror. I got lucky, because I didn’t get cited. I think that is probably because enforcement in California is probably no better than in Oregon.

So if I didn’t get a ticket, why am I so disgruntled? This morning, I wanted to make sure that I could use a disabled space in California. I went online and looked at the California Department of Motor Vehicles web site and discovered that there is no reciprocity in California when it comes to out-of-state disabled parking permits.

In order to park in designated spaces in here, I would need to plan ahead and apply for a travel permit by mail. It isn’t necessary to apply in advance if I want to make an on-line or telephone appointment. I would need to have a form completed by my doctor detailing my disability.

I don’t object to the necessity of a doctor’s verification of my need for a permit. I had to go through that to get my Oregon permit. I think it’s important that people aren’t able to get a permit for anything less than a verifiable disability that represents a need for accommodation in parking a vehicle.

I do object to having to go through it any time I want to travel to California. Since my daughter, her husband, and three of my grandchildren live here, I hope I’ll come here often. A travel placard in California is free, but is only good for 90 days.

I live in the Portland metropolitan area. Across the river from us is Washington state, where my disabled parking permit is honored. Oregon has the following policy regarding reciprocity.

Oregon recognizes disabled person parking permits that are issued by other states or countries for the purpose of identifying vehicles permitted to utilize parking spaces reserved for persons with disabilities.

So, for a Californian to visit Oregon, he only needs to bring his California placard. For anyone to use a space in California, he must get a doctor’s verification, fill out a form, then take it or mail it to the California DMV.

Today, we went back to the hospital to see our new grandchild. I parked a long way from the door in a space that would have been too narrow for my vehicle if it hadn’t been on the end.

After the hospital, we went to a grocery store. I tried to park in a normal space, but the driver’s-side door and passenger door were so close to the other cars that I had to move.

When it comes to disabled visitors, California has it wrong.

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It’s campground is full nearly every weekend beginning in the spring through the fall. It closes in the winter. Camping at McIver State Park is a great and relaxing experience, even for people with mobility issues.

Of the fourty-four regular camp sites, one is designated for disabled use. Site number 10 has features making it a good experience for people who have mobility devices (mobi’s) or have difficulty getting around.

I spoke to a park ranger who said that they expect that people using the site will have a state-issued parking permit for disabled people. States other than Oregon are recognized.

If you plan to use it, get there by 7:00PM. If it is not taken by a person with a qualifying permit by that time, it will be available to others. Remember, though, that the park fills up and the spaces are reservable online. See the park’s web page for information. Generally, it fills up well in advance for weekends. During the warmer parts of the year, the weekdays also fill up quickly.

I did not reserve Site 10 for my visit there. I wish I had. Even though I get around with a cane when I have to walk far, I was reticent to take the site from someone who had a mobility device. It turned out that no one used site 10 the two days I was there. It definitely had some useful features for me.

Whereas most sites in the park are dirt, site 10 is paved and bricked for easy access to mobi’s.

For me, the best feature, and the one that made me wish I had reserved it, was the elevated fire pit. I could have pulled up a chair and built a fire without having to bend way over to the ground. I would have save a lot of misery and pain. This is a great idea!

On the down side, Site 10 has a couple of problems that the engineers didn’t foresee.

1. The water spigot is located on dirt, not easily accessed from a mobi.
2. The electrical hookup is also located on dirt.
3. The waste water receptical is on dirt and set back away from the road.

Site 10 is conveniently located near the restrooms and showers. It is, in fact, the closest site to the building.

The restrooms have a disabled placard next to the door. It seemed to me that the angles, weight of the door, and positioning of the stalls were all less than optimum for a wheelchair or mobility device. Not being in one myself, I couldn’t say for certain.

Never fear. There is a very nice shower/restroom specifically designated for disabled people.

I spoke to a park ranger about it. He told me that the biggest problem they have with it is that everyone wants to use it. They have a dilemma there. They don’t want to lock it, because that would add a burden to people who want to use it legitimately. Yet, if they don’t lock it, anyone can and does use it.

Since I have issues standing for a long period of time without a cane, I used the facility. It is well built. There is a toilet, a shower with a seat that lifts up, a removeable shower head, a sink, a mirror, and a sturdy bench of ample size.

I had some problems with it.

1. The door is metal and sturdy, which is no doubt a must for the weather conditions and security. However, I found it to be heavy. It might be a problem for some to open it. An automatic door would solve that.
2. When I went in there, I turned on the shower to give it a chance to warm up. That got my feet wet. I was still wearing my shoes. I looked down and I had muddied the floor. With my back problems, I was fairly hopeless to clean it up well. I put some paper towels on the floor and tried to wipe it up with my feet. It worked, but it was a lot of pain.
3. The shower had one of those seats made of wooden slats. I hate those. Not trying to be indelicate, but it pinches your bum pretty hard when you stand up. I think that the people who designed those never had to sit on them. It doesn’t matter whether they are made of wood or plastic. The slats hurt to sit on.
4. The hot water spigot in the sink is one of those that you push to start. It lasts about two seconds and stops. It takes a lot of pushing it to get it hot enough for shaving. Since there’s no seat in front of the sink, I had to stand there a long time leaning on my cane and pushing that faucet button before I could shave.

I saw what the ranger meant. While I was inside, someone kept practically running by it and trying the door. I kept hearing footsteps making the rounds between the women’s restroom and the disabled shower. When I finally emerged, she was waiting for me. I heard the footsteps running around. This was not a person who had trouble with mobility. When she saw my cane, she walked away. I’d bet she went back later.

Recommendations

I like to keep my recommendations fairly cheap and easy to accomplish. There are probably some more expensive remedies to the problems I noted. I don’t think these should be too difficult or costly.

• In Site 10, pave the areas around the water spigot, electrical hookup, and waste water reciptical.
• Fix the hot water spigot in the disabled shower/restroom so it runs for more than two seconds.
• Outside of the disabled shower/restroom, put one of those shoe brush things so people can wipe the dirt off of their feet before going in. In fact, this would be a great idea for the other restrooms and showers. I noticed that they’re always muddy too.
• Replace that awful seat in the shower/restroom with a more solid surface, i.e., no slats.
• When someone checks into Site 10, offer them a key to the disabled shower/restroom. If anyone else wants one and has a state disabled parking permit, they can get one too. Don’t be too stringent about this. As a provider of services around activities of daily living to developmentally adults, I have clients who need an attendant in the shower. The tiny shower stalls meant for everyone else won’t facilitate that. Just keep the thing locked and give out keys,with a deposit maybe, to those who need them. Shame on anyone who needlessly uses facilities meant for disabled people.

Summary

If you are in the area, do visit Milo McIver State Park. It’s a wonderful experience. The facilities for disabled people are superior. The park is really great. Thanks to the staff and hosts! They were terrific!

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I had to make a phone call before I went in. While I was talking on the phone, the white car in this photo drove up. It had the permit hanging from the mirror as required.

The doors opened and out poured three young people who showed no signs of having any mobility issues. They walked into the store and were quick and agile about it. It’s a scene I’ve seen a hundred times.

There is virtually no enforcement of the laws that reserve these spaces for qualifying disabled people. I have never seen a police officer looking at the windows. It is usually left up to private security forces associated with the establishments where the spaces exist.

At one large store in my area, disabled people do the policing. One man in a scooter would park behind a vehicle being driving by someone without a permit. When the driver tried to back up, he would call the police and charge the driver with assault.

I’ve thought about the idea of having a web page of shame for pictures of people who abuse these parking spaces. I don’t know much about the legalities involved. I doubt, however, that it would be much of a deterrent.

In Oregon, our highways and city streets are burgeoning with police officers writing tickets for speeding and other traffic violations. Municipalities are setting up cameras all over to catch people running red lights or going too fast The fines are low compared to the $450 maximum for illegally parking. I’m one who believes that enforcement of speed limits is based more on generating revenue than making the streets safer. I would bet that Oregon localities could make a lot more money writing citations for vehicles using disabled spaces illegally than they do setting speed traps.

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As a provider of training services to developmentally disabled adults, I operate on the idea that anyone with any kind of disability should have the right and the reasonable accommodation to participate in whatever aspect of life is available to everyone else. As a person with disabilities myself, I am aware that even with reasonable accommodation, there are many things I just can’t do.

I have found, in my life, that the only way to truly rule those things out, is to try them in a safe and supported environment. Thinking that I can’t is a sure way to not try.

Look at how we idolize people who overcome physical disabilities to do things like sports. I was recently touched to watch a documentary called Emmanuel’s Gift, a story about a man in Ghana who overcomes physical challenges to fight for the rights of disabled people in his country. It is a touching and inspiring story, and I don’t wish to detract from its message.

However, I think that our society is not so readily touched, as they should be, by the more average stories out there. What about the every day disabled person who reaches a little farther than his or her family, friends, and communities think they should be able to do in terms of just daily living. Why is it that we only get misty over disabled athletes?

To me, a person who was thought to not be able to hold down a job who proves everyone wrong is every bit as much of a hero as Emmanuel. It’s the every day things that we disabled people do against the odds that really shine.

Such an everyday thing is driving a car. We make accommadations for all sorts of people to be able to drive cars. Deaf, little people, amputees, paraplegics, illiterate, and many other kinds of people can get driver’s licenses. Developmentally disabled people can do, provided they can wade through the manual, take a written test, and pass a drivers test.

For many things, developmentally disabled clients need training. I find it incongruent that there is funding to teach them to use the buses but not to learn how to pass the written examination for a license to drive. Personally, it’s so expensive to drive these days, I’m not sure why anyone wants to, but as long as the rest of us do, I think that anyone who can meet the requirements should be allowed to.

I know what some readers of this article will think. You’re afraid of having developmentally disabled clients driving on your roads. The other day, on the freeway, I saw a woman knitting while she drove in congested traffic. I’ve seen it all when it comes to stupid things people do while driving. Maybe we should all just abandon our vehicles.

What I know for sure is that I’ve had clients that I think probably should not drive, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to find out for certain. That’s because I am also completely convinced that some of them can not only drive, but can be better drivers than a lot of the people we never even think should be denied the right. I’m not advocating for every developmentally disabled audlt to be given a drivers license. I’m just asking for fairness that if I can teach one living skill, I can teach another.

Currently, I am not allowed to help a client read and study the Oregon Drivers Manual. Most of my clients can read. Most can recognize and read traffic signs and the categories of them. Most can recognize categories, as in the difference between the yellow warnings and the black-and-white speed signs. They know shapes and colors. What many can’t do is comprehend the language of the drivers manual. I know a few people who aren’t developmentally disabled that have the same trouble.

One category of services that are offered clients are known as Activities of Daily Living (ADL). One of the supports involve cognition supports. Another ADL activity is mobility. Both of these apply to getting a drivers license. Now, I’m not saying that I think that learning to drive should fall under the ADL type of support. I think it is more of a living skill. I’m just trying to illustrate and argue against the idea that helping a customer make sense of the drivers manual is in the same category as tutoring for a school subject. This has been the rationale when my customers have asked for this help and the brokerage personel have turned it down.

I also want to say that I am not blaming the brokerages. These interpretations come from higher up and the brokerages are just implementing what they have been told. I view this more seriously than that.

I believe that this constitues discrimination as defined by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act as described in Section 202. It states:

Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.

It is discrimination, first by the Department of Motor Vehicles, who provides accommodation for many disabilites to take the written examination, but not for developmentally disabled adults. It is also discrimination by the Oregon Department of Human Services in their oversight of programs for developmentally disabled adults to not allow private contractors to provide cognitive support in understanding and learning the drivers manual.

I call on decision makers who define what skills can be taught to developmentally disabled adults to allow customers to receive support in reading and studying the drivers manual. I also call on the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles to investigate ways to test developmentally disabled adults for compehension of the information in the drivers manual that don’t require them to answer confusingly worded questions.

It’s time that we recognized that many of the limitations we see in people with developmental disabilities have been imposed on them by a society that is not willing to explore their full potential. What that potential is can never be discovered as long as we assume they can’t do it.

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