Rock Steady Blog

By Michael Rock Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses that people experience. Frequent as it is among the general population, those with developmental and intellectual disabilities are more likely to suffer from it. In one long-term study conducted by researchers at Guildford, England’s University of Surrey, 18.3% of people with cerebral palsy […]

By Michael Rock No parent wants their child to be a victim of bullying. Tragically, bullying is too common an experience for people with disabilities. According to one poll, as many as 56 percent of students with disabilities have experienced some form of bullying. Another study suggests that the nature of a victim’s disability can […]

By Michael Rock It should be common sense that people with disabilities need access to quality health care like anyone else. Unfortunately, various factors can render it inaccessible to them too often. Some people with autism may experience difficulty communicating with doctors and other medical staff. Those who can communicate are not infrequently misunderstood or […]

By Michael Rock Over the past several decades, video games have emerged as a major form of both art and entertainment. Though they are very popular among segments of the disability community, video games are not infrequently inaccessible to them for a number of reasons. Despite such challenges, efforts to better include people with disabilities […]

By Michael Rock It’s a well-known fact that interacting with animals can offer people with disabilities numerous therapeutic benefits. For people with disabilities that have potentially life-threatening symptoms such as epilepsy, a service animal, such as a dog, can play a central role in detecting seizures, as the ones offered at Xenia, Ohio’s 4 Paws […]

By Michael Rock Many people find it unnerving to interact with law enforcement officers. For people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, these sentiments can be amplified due to the nature of the deficits they face. Ignorance about disability and its intersection with the law from police can further exacerbate possible tensions. A strong example of […]

By Michael Rock When states need to better manage their budgets, services for people with disabilities are often among the first things to be cut. The implicit and sometimes explicit reasoning for this is that people with disabilities are seen as financial burdens rather than as people with unique needs and talents that just need […]

By Michael Rock On March 26, 2019, a former FedEx employee from Middletown, New York was arrested after being discovered in a kickboxing class after claiming he was unable to do his job following a disabling injury. Before his detention, he stole over $9,000 worth of Workers’ Compensation benefit payments. According to the Social Security […]

By Michael Rock Few things bring people together as music does. For people with disabilities, especially children, access to music has numerous benefits. Such benefits include improved relationships between children and their parents, greater auditory, literary, language, and social skills, greater fine motor abilities, increased memory, lower rates of fear and higher thresholds for pain, […]

By Michael Rock Everybody likes to laugh. However, people should be aware that their jokes don’t come at the expense of other groups. Too often and for too long, people with disabilities have been objectified as a source of amusement. Since ancient times, they have frequently appeared in such fields of entertainment as circuses. In […]