Disabilities

For personal reasons, "Billy" did not want his real name revealed here. He lives in the Midwest as a double-leg, below-knee amputee and has had more brushes with death

What young Joshua had would have concerned any mother. What arose from their experience has benefited many people with disabilities.

My 19-year-old daughter Abigail, who uses a wheelchair, lately has been doing a great deal of genealogical research, mainly because

Perhaps like you, recently I read of an incident in Okeechobee, Florida, in which an 18-year-old man was recorded on video beating, choking, kicking, and holding a knife to the throat of a 16-year-old boy with autism.

17-year-old Alisha Pierce suddenly came down with a cold, then a fever, caught viral pneumonia, and passed away inside two days. More than three years later, her mother, Shawn Pierce, still remembers her daughter with cerebral palsy.

In last week's column, I mentioned that in 2005 Mary Kellett had given birth to a baby boy with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder in which her son had a third copy of material from chromosome 18.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects 1.5 million Americans annually, usually through automobile and bicycle accidents, falls, contact sports, and violence. It's the leading cause of long-term disability in children and young adults.

The Spina Bifida Association website claims spina bifida affects about 165,000 Americans and is the nation's most common permanently disabling birth defect. It occurs when a child's spine doesn't close during the first months of pregnancy. People with spina bifida usually require a brain shunt to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid.

Until moving recently, 75-year-old Ella Mae Rayner read this column in the New Bern Sun Journal in North Carolina

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)defines fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD) as "an umbrella term describing the range of effects that can occur in an individual who was prenatally exposed to alcohol