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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The articulation of disability rights principles and models of disability developed by disabled communities is fairly recent. Today, ongoing ignorance of these concepts in broader society significantly limits the general public’s ability to conceptualize any disabled group as one with distinct goals and interests. This has led to a lack of clear, consistent policy from any major political party in regards to accessibility, eugenics, or representative research policy. As a result, disability rights advocates may find themselves with allies and enemies across the political spectrum, with supporters who become oppressors when the issue changes. This talk will discuss relevant policy history, give a brief overview of some of the major areas crucial to policy development in which political values often lead to inconsistency. It will open into a discussion of coalition-building, public awareness and framing of disability rights issues, and self-advocacy.
Terms used to refer to disabilities and the related definitions change over time, evolving in response to changes in social conventions. Currently we often see references to “students with extensive support needs (ESN).†When we look at studies focusing on participants with ESN, we find great variability in participant descriptions, even though all are using the “ESN†phrase; we likely find widely varying communication, academics, and motor skills, as well as co-occurring disabilities. The implications of study results and resulting applications for practitioners will be very different depending upon whom the study actually focuses (i.e., very specific participant descriptions). This session will focus on an analysis of published reviews that specifically state focusing on students with ESN. Results of this research will be examined to present an overview of who the term ESN represents in research and to make recommendations for definitional clarity.
