What’s New

  • Cleveland Browns quarterback and Special Olympics Global Ambassador Joe Haden has a message for everyone: “The R-word is hurtful, hateful and ignorant. Like the N-word, it should not be part of our language.” Haden got involved with Special Olympics because of his younger brother Jacob, who has an intellectual disability. Read more at ESPN.
  • Deborah M. Spitalnik, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Executive Director of The Boggs Center, provided testimony at a public hearing for the New Jersey Department of Health’s Maternal and Child Health Services Title V Block Grant Application on June 23, 2015, in Trenton, NJ.
  • An increasing number of Americans with disabilities are job hunting, new government data suggests. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities ticked up last month to 10.4 percent, a rise over the 9.3 percent jobless rate reported the month prior, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday.
  • The Division of Developmental Disabilities released the second draft version of the Supports Program Policies and Procedures Manual. This version of the Supports Program Policies and Procedures Manual is being released at this time in order to solicit additional feedback from individuals, families, providers, staff, and other Division stakeholders. It is anticipated and expected that the Manual will change based on this input and as further development and implementation of the Supports Program occurs. Click here to get more information from the New Jersey Association of Community Providers.
  • Creative ideas may be more likely to come from people with high levels of autism traits, a new study suggests, hinting at a possible advantage for those on the spectrum. When presented with a challenge, researchers found that those with more behaviors and thought processes characteristic of autism offered fewer ideas, but tended to come up with more original solutions.