Welcome to the official website for the 2024 TASH Conference!
Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme is Celebrate Together: Let the Good Times Roll!
Click on the "Registration and More" tab for additional information about our Conference location, registration, reserving a guest room, sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, and more! The full Conference schedule is now available for viewing. Registered attendees will receive an invitation to log in and create a personalized schedule.
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This colloquium centers youth and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and complex support needs as essential research partners within six participatory research projects, including inclusive research, participatory action research, community-based participatory research, and youth participatory action research. Each research team embodies the processes and principles of participatory research by how they center and amplify youth and adult experiences and perspectives to influence the policies, practices, scholarship, and systems that impact them most. Authentic equity, justice, access, and inclusion cannot be actualized without the epistemic agency of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and complex support needs. This session calls for more participatory research controlled by them from theorization to dissemination.
This proposed four-hour session consists of 6 research paper presentations that will last 25 minutes each. We will reserve 10 minutes total for the session chair’s introduction and closing as well as 10 minutes for discussant remarks. There will also be a 10 minute break. This allows for 10 minutes for questions/discussion, dialogue/resource sharing with attendees after each presentation.
5 minutes: Introduction to the overall session and speakers, Colloquium Chair – Hasan Ko
25 minutes: “What Matters Most to Adults with Disabilities in Their Daily Lives: A Nationwide Project” - Paul Betz, Thomas Caswell, Whitley Daper, David Frye, Jess Kilpeck, Hasan Ko, Mark Utter, Nicole Villemaire, Emily Anderson, and Amanda Miller 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
25 minutes: “Participatory Action Research on the Service Planning Experiences of Massachusetts Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities” – Anne Fracht and Hezzy Smith 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
25 minutes: “Person Centered Planning and Home Community-Based Services on the Move” – David Taylor, Chaquetta Stuckey, and Anne Fracht 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
10 minutes: Break
25 minutes: “Collaborating With And Promoting Youth Voices in Research With Youth With Cerebral Palsy Who Do Not Speak And Who Use AAC” – Ramona Schwartz-Johnston 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
25 minutes: “Applying Inclusive Methods to Shed Light on the COVID-19 Pandemic Experiences of Group Home Residents with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in Massachusetts” – Anne Fracht and Hezzy Smith 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
25 minutes: “Working Together as an Inclusive Team” – Pauline Bosma and Oscar Hughes 10 minutes: Questions and discussion
10 minutes: Remarks, Discussant – Amanda L. Miller
While there is lots of research on the experiences and outcomes of people with disabilities, findings are not often shared in ways that are accessible and supportive of advocacy efforts. Advocacy methods that include quality data are often highly effective in steering the changes advocates hope to see; however, community engagement with disability data, including the collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data, is usually minimal. This can result in a disconnect between what researchers and policymakers feel is important to advocates and what advocates feel is important for their community. This session will feature an overview of existing efforts related to collecting and strengthening disability data and how these efforts are currently supporting advocacy. Then, we will have a rousing discussion with attendees about the most critical ways to enhance engagement with the disability community to support use of disability data in local, state, and national advocacy,
