Commissioner Ruttledge Testifies Before Senate HELP Committee

On March 2, 2001, RSA Commissioner Lynnae Ruttledge, ADD Commissioner Sharon Lewis, and others testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on improving the employment outcomes for individuals with intellectual disabilities. In her remarks, Commissioner Ruttledge described VR program data on transition-age youths, state VR agency emerging practices and current research and demonstration activities. Taken together, you may extract sufficient data and documentation from these presentations to develop your own materials that could be used in your states to promote improving the achievement of employment outcomes for transition-age youths. You may either view the presentations or read the text at the link below.
http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=536891af-5056-9502-5d9c-9a3e588e3214

Changes Proposed in Terms for Intellectual Disability

Intellectual Disability Terminology

On Tuesday, Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Michael Enzi (R-WY) introduced "Rosa's Law"(S. 2781) a bipartisan bill to substitute outdated, stigmatizing terms in federal health, education and labor laws. The terms "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" would be substituted with the terms "intellectual disability" and "individual with an intellectual disability." The change in terminology would in no way alter the eligibility requirements for services and supports. See related stories on Disability Intel.