 Major sponsors for Abledon On Air include Green Mountain Support Services of Vermont, Washington County Mental Health, Al-A'Israel. Food sponsors for Abledon On Air include Geffen Foods Israel, Osam Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Abledon On Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, www.thisisthebronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, U.S. Press Court, Domestic and International. Anchor F.L. and Spotify. Welcome to this edition of Abledon On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently abled. I've always been your host, Lauren Syler. And Arlene's here today. She's finally here today on the phone. On this program, we will be doing the Abledon On Air 2020 year in review. This will air at the end of the year. So in editing, just to let you guys know, in our audience, this will air at the end of the year. We would like to thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health and Green Mountain Support Services, and many, many, many, many others, including Spotify and Anchor FM. For those that want to listen to the Abledon On Air podcast, you can go to www.anchor.fm, or www.spotify.com. Anyway, let's get to the year in review. Arlene, go ahead. Did you want to start? Yeah, and they're still looking actually. They have host recordings, it's like a host. Yeah, they're gonna do guest host first, and then, but they were also looking into LeVar Burton, who was on Star Trek, and reading Rainbow. Huh? Yeah, mm-hmm. Before we get to Abledon On Air, you're in review. Let's take a look at what's been happening in the field of disabilities. As you know, the pandemic, COVID-19 is still going on, and a lot of people, beginning in May and June, a lot of people were having, a lot of people with special needs were having problems with services. I know that being epileptic myself, it was hard for me to get some services, and a lot of services went on Zoom or phone call with your doctor, which is still not a good thing. If you're used to going to the doctor, you go to the doctor. But during the pandemic, it's been really hard. So let's, on Disability Scoop, www.disabilityscoop.com, you can go and look at situations in the field of special needs media on disability scoop. Schools have struggled to fulfill individual education plans, IEPs, amid the pandemic government report fines. Basically, a lot of schools are having problems. Students are having problems with schoolwork. Yeah, you can do schoolwork on computer, but many students need one-on-one. One-on-one. A report on disabilityschool.com, according to November 30th, in November 30th, 2020, government investigators are offering up some first details about schools fared in addressing the needs of students with disabilities when shuttered at the start of the pandemic. A report out in the month of November from the Government Accountability Office dives into high schools, manage special education, and services for English learners during the switch to distant learning in the spring of 2019, 2020, academic year. Finding out by-large that they did struggle. A lot of people have struggled. This won't stop until the pandemic stops. The investigation was conducted as part of GAO's oversight responsibilities under the CARE Act and federal COVID relief package passed earlier this year. So a lot of people are still having school struggles. Yeah, yeah, many students with special needs need, they need one-on-one learning. If you need one-on-one learning, that's really hard in terms of stuff. Now, as far as Ableton-Onero's concerned, let's take a look at recently there was a group that Green Mountain Support Services introduced us to by the name of Elevate Us. Elevate Us is an agency that provides sex therapy and classes on the topic of sex and sex and people with special needs. Let's take a look at that clip by Elevate Us. Let's take a look at this. We will focus on sex and people with special needs and with us to discuss this important topic. Would you mind introducing yourself, please? Not at all. My name is Catherine McLaughlin and I have a small business called Elevate Us Training and I live in New Hampshire. Can you explain the missions and goals of your agency and how it works with advocacy and sex and people with special needs? Yeah, so mission is to empower, motivate, and educate self-advocates, professionals and parents to gain confidence, comfort, knowledge, and skills to teach and openly talk about sexuality. And the hope is that that will lead to people with developmental disabilities leading sexually healthy lives. That's the mission. The goals are really to provide education and training and educational materials to help people address this topic. So rather than me running all around the country, trying to teach this, my focus has been how do I help other people? Okay, so why is it so hard for, especially parents of children with special needs, why is it so hard for people to talk about sex as a topic because it is a touchy subject for a lot of people? Yeah, well, I think one thing is when we hear sexuality education, we think sex. But really it means a lot more than that. So it's also about relationships, how do you interact in different kinds of relationships? What's the difference between public and private? What's okay to do here and there? As well as how do you move from friends to a partner or sweetheart? And it's a lot more than sex. So I think that's one thing. Is it people hear sexuality and get scared that you're gonna teach my child to have sex? I think the other thing is that in general, our culture isn't comfortable with this topic, whether you have a disability or not. So most people tell me at trainings that they get the message that they're not supposed to talk about it. Wait till you're married, all kinds of things like that. So we have this negative messages in our culture about this topic in general. Then we lay on disability too. And so I think many people think of people with disabilities as asexual. So not needing any of this information, not wanting relationships, nothing. And so I think those views, those myths and stereotypes about people with disabilities make it hard for people to talk about it. So one is we just don't talk about it in our culture. And the other are these myths and stereotypes. Another stereotype is that people with disabilities are childlike. So they need protection from this. So I think that's another reason it's that how we're viewing people with disabilities. And another is sometimes people think of people with disabilities as over sex. Like I can't give them this information or go wild. So there's all these ideas about people with disabilities that make people hold back and talking about it. Now, do you wanna talk about the elections? Okay. Okay. And recently Ableton On Air did an election special. So we did a two-part election special explaining to many people with special needs in our audience, explaining what the electoral college is and how it benefits people with special needs. Let's take a look at those two episodes. Let's take a look at the Ableton On Air election special. Let's take a look. Why don't we do this and show it's gonna be in editing. So that's the election as it stands now. The election results as it stands now and the map will be shown. So right now it is frozen with Joe Biden at 264 and Donald Trump at 214. So the map will then the map and we'll be putting that this map is from the Associated Press. The Associated Press has not called the race. So they are not in charge of the race. They have not called it. But the map is on computer is on your computer. You can go to it and it's from the Associated Press. And as it's been updated as from 11th, 1143 a.m. and this is live as it happens. So anything else you wanna talk about? Yeah, well, let's go to the definition of the Affordable Care Act and then we can roll a piece of it here. Okay, so let's define the Affordable Care Act here as far as reform and affordable health care. Oops, hold on, hold on a minute. Affordable Care Act. All right, so the Affordable Care Act is where people get affordable health care. Since the law was transformed by transformed the American healthcare system has expanded. Healthcare coverage to, has expanded healthcare coverage to 20 million Americans saving thousands of lives. The ACA codified protections for people with pre-existing conditions, cerebral palsy, blindness, et cetera and eliminating patient costs, sharing high value, sharing the high value of preventive services. Let's take a look at the Ableton on Air episode with the Affordable Care Act. Let's take a look at this. The thing that's important to understand is that healthcare is extremely important especially for people with special needs. So the situation is, what Vermont gets in terms of healthcare, you know, Medicare, Medicaid and certain services. And a lot of countries have what we call free healthcare or they pay a certain percentage for health. But yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh suggested Tuesday that Trump wants, the problem is President Trump wants affordable care or healthcare to go away or change. He says, it's too expensive. Arlene, what's your take on the importance of affordable healthcare? You know, speaking about people with special needs, there's one particular clip that I would like to show and you know, William Jackson is a good friend of ours of Ableton on Air and we've recently interviewed him back in July and he's doing wonderful things despite his problems with mental health and situations with mental health. Let's take a look at the episode we did with William Jackson. He's a freelancer, a freelance journalist with the Harlem Times. Let's take a look and listen to that episode. Let's listen to William Jackson. Let's take a look at this. Can you give advice to anybody who is dealing with mental illness or mental challenges and wants to go into journalism? And that's one of them, so Arlene, if you want to be on air, you know, you definitely have to work hard at it, but though, mm-hmm. That's true, yeah, I agree. So William, what made you want to get two masters? You already have one. In Milford, Connecticut. You know, the decision to get a second degree. You know, I tried to find, actually I tried to find some individual classes be writing, you know. Okay, let's take, let's talk more about how people with special needs are dealing with the pandemic. You must wear your mask. Governor Scott recently said in 2020 about wearing masks. Let's take, hold on. Let me look that up. Okay, according, there's a something new here. According to a website, disability issues brief, the ADA and mask wearing policies. So, now there are plenty of reasons and also Governor Scott mentioned some of these to people in Vermont. Individuals with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD or any other respiratory disabilities may not be able to wear a face mask because of difficulty of impaired breathing. People with respiratory disabilities should consult their own medical professional for advice using face mask. Also the Center for Disease Control, CDC or also other states say that anyone who has trouble breathing should not wear a face mask. I know a lot of people will probably get angry at that but they don't know what the person is going through. You gotta know what the person is going through to understand this. So if you have any medical breathing problems such as chronic pulmonary disease, which is called COPD or asthma, should not wear a face mask. People with post-traumatic stress disorder, PDSD, which includes severe anxiety or claustrophobia, which is an abnormal field of being enclosed into narrow places may feel afraid or terrified about wearing a face mask. These individuals may not have to, not be able, sorry, may not be able to stay calm or function when wearing a face mask. I'm going over this. Some people with autism are sensitive to touch and texture covering the nose and mouth with fabric. Covering, hold on. Covering the nose and mouth with fabric can cause sensory overload, feelings of panic and extreme anxiety. A person who has cerebral palsy may have difficulty moving. There's small muscles in their hands, wrists or fingers. Due to limited mobility, they may not be able to tie the strings or put the elastic loops of a face mask over the ears. This means that individuals may not be able to put on or remove the face mask without assistance. A person who uses mouth control devices such as Sip and Puff, or as they're known and there are no people who have one, maybe one day we'll show what one looks like, it's called a sippy cup. A cup with a large lid and it has a straw, a big straw. A person who uses mouth control, yeah, Sip and Puff or operates a wheelchair or assistive technology using their mouth or tongue to assistive ventilators will be unable to wear a mask. If the person with a disability who's unable to wear a face mask, do I still have to allow them in my business or government agency? That's a big, the number of states with mask mandates changes in response to the current outbreak of conditions. The District of Columbia, which is Washington DC or Puerto Rico also have mask mandates in place. These mandates vary by state and generally call for face masks to be worn on a public basis. Public transportation or any situation where six feet of social separation cannot occur. These mandates also include exemptions for children, people with disabilities or medical conditions and situations where masks interfere with effective communication. These state mandates do not override the consideration for reasonable modifications required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Many private businesses also have developed policies requiring the use of face masks. The ADA does not have any rules that address the required face masks used by state and local governments or private owners. If a person is not able to wear face masks, state and local government agencies and private businesses must consider reasonable accommodations which includes delivery. Hold on one second. I'm getting it, okay. There they must have reasonable modifications to a fast-maced face mask policy that a person with disability can participate in or benefit from. The programs offered in goods and services that are provided. If they can't go to the store, you can have it delivered. A reasonable modification means policies, practices and procedures if needed to provide goods and services, facility privileges, advantages or accommodations to an individual with disability. It is important to focus on how to provide goods and services to a customer with a disability in an equal manner. This can be done by reasonably modifying your policies, practices and procedures. Now, examples of reasonable accommodations for businesses in every state or even Vermont. Allow the person to wear a scarf or lose face covering or face shield instead of a face mask. Allow customers to order online with curbside pickup or no contact delivery in a timely manner. Allow customers to order by phone with curbside pickup and no contact delivery in a timely manner. Allow a person to wait in a car for an appointment and enter the building when called or texted or offer appointments by telephone or video calls. Yet, there are three reasons under the ADA or state or local government or private business may not have to provide a reasonable accommodation, okay? And they should, but a state or local government or agency or business may not have to provide reasonable accommodation if the modification would change the nature of a service program or activity or service facility. The fundamental alteration is a change to a degree of the original program, service or activity is no longer the same, okay? So if it's gonna alter the business completely, they might not be able to provide accommodation. But they have to, okay? It's a question of have to. Wait, one minute, okay? No, it may be considered a direct threat. Well, hopefully police don't have to be called when trying to get a reasonable accommodation. The best practice tip, prepare a list of alternatives to face masks, cloth covering, policy that can share with people with disabilities who request reasonable modification to your policy. So if you want information on this, you can go to adaSouthEast.org that's adaSouthEast.org. Anything else you wanna say before we end? We got a couple minutes left, okay? Well, we would like to say, well, I would like to say I would like to thank our sponsors, Remount and Support Services, Washington County Mental Health, and many others this year for 2020. We would like to thank our sponsors for letting us come into your home. I know that Ableton on Air has been a little different this year. We apologize for that. 2021 will be a better year. And giving information to people with disabilities and their families has been my business for 25 plus years being a journalist, and my wife is studying more to be a journalist. And it's been, everybody has their struggles, but giving information is what we do. And we would just like to thank the state of Vermont and many others for supporting us in many, many, many years of advocacy and journalism. Especially, I would like to thank Greed and Mountain Support Services for being there for us in past years, as well as in 2021. They are one of our major sponsors and we would like to thank them. We will be heavily involved this coming year in 2021 with photography, with more videos, with more portfolios for Ableton on Air. And again, we would like to thank Orca Media for letting us produce Ableton on Air as we continue our mission. And that is giving people news and information for and about people with special needs and for the differently able. Again, this puts an end to this edition of Ableton on Air, year in review, 2020. Thank you to our sponsors. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you in 2021. Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Greed Mountain Support Services of Vermont, Washington County Mental Health, Al-Israel. Food sponsors for Ableton on Air include Geffen Foods Israel, Osem Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, www, thisisthebronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, U.S. Press Court, Domestic and International. Anchor FL and Spotify.