I would suggest you do a then vs. now presentation. Pick a date – say back to when you were a child – or some date in time 1977 or 1987 – and compare what life was like for a child with a learning disability to what goes on in the most positive sense now.

Look at the definitions of mental retardation – and how kids were treated then – depending on where you live, there are still mentally retarded people living in intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded (ICFMR ). this is definitely the lowest end of the ADA scale.

Today most of the children who were in institutions can live at home with supports – whether that is in their original family home, or with other families. Through the years, schools have accepted children with aides and coped with conditions we never thought possible even 10-15 years ago.

You might try to find a family nearby, who would allow you to accompany their child to school – take a few photos – at home and at school – to illustrate your report. When you accompany the child to school, ask the teacher about how the ADA influences the education a child gets today.

It is more than making a school accessible to wheelchairs – or teaching sight impaired kids, or hearing impaired kids. Now ADA assists students to learn as much as they can for as long as they can tolerate being up in a chair. They learn activities of daily living in special classes and then participate in some regular classes.

IT’s not easy – and the other kids can be less than kindly. But having kids of all ages involved in classes makes us more tolerant of each other. If we have kids of all abilities around us all the time, it makes us all better citizens – and it gives those who were shut out because of disabilities part of society’s whole picture.

Depending on how much time you have for a presentation you could do a sensory impairment lesson – get dark wraparound sunglasses for “blindness” or smear vaseline jelly on lenses of glasses for vision impairment, there are books that give more examples. and then ask the students to participate in class with no accomodations.

I hope this gives you a few ideas. good luck on your report.

then introduce what the ADA doe