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.
Although nearly all law enforcement officers (LEOs) report responding to calls with autistic individuals, as few as 9% of officers receive training specific to autism. To address this issue, in 2022, a multidisciplinary team (MDT) began designing Interaction with Neurodiverse Citizens: Training Effective Response And Communication (INTERAC), an autism-specific training, in collaboration with a local police lieutenant. Based on prior research on essential content for autism-specific training for LEOs and three rounds of feedback from the lieutenant, the team launched the training during shift debrief meetings for LEOs. INTERAC includes didactic presentation, body camera footage and scenarios, and resources, and was delivered by the MDT, which includes two Autistic adults. This presentation at TASH will share the process for the development and implementation of the training, the perspectives of all trainers, including the Autistic adults, and results and input from the LEOs.
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.
State developmental disability systems provide critical supports for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. But, many people with autism and medically fragile children may not qualify for services. Hear how North Dakota is partnering with self-advocates and families to redefine their approach to supports through the lens of the All.
Although research documents an association between low expectations and poor community living and participation (CLP) outcomes for individuals with ID, there remains a gap in understanding which factors most impactfully influence expectations; a gap that prevents an advancement of meaningful and effective policies and strategies in support of positive CLP outcomes. Further, research on CLP outcomes commonly excludes individuals with/family members of individuals with ID- thereby limiting an understanding of those most influential/impacted by low expectations and diminished CLP outcomes. Disentangling research on the factors that influence CLP expectations has the potential to enhance CLP outcomes by highlighting the factors that should be maximized to enhance expectations or addressed to minimize low expectations.
I will tell my story with lived experience with a seizure disorder, epilepsy and mental health illnesses. In my Mexican culture Disability is a taboo and I was denied my diagnosis because of it. Listeners will learn how I got diagnosed later in life and how difficult it has been to defeat my inner ableist. This greatly affected my quality of life and the way I viewed myself. I will talk about how Self Advocacy helped me accept myself and how important it is to break stigmas.
Join this session to learn about an innovative partnership between the LEAD Center and Parent 2 Parent USA (P2P USA), harnessing the input from parent advisors to craft resources to promote employment and career outcomes for their family members with disabilities. Families also identified resources through which they can access essential supports and services. Hear from family leaders and employment subject matter experts from LEAD Center about the pivotal role families play in envisioning and supporting the people with disabilities in their lives across their lifespan as they journey towards competitive integrated employment.
Many autistic adults express dissatisfaction with their K-12 school experiences and face social rejection more often than their non-autistic peers. However, autistic youth’s voices are rarely included in educational research or policy-making. In this study, we examined autistic people’s perceptions of ableism in American K-12 school systems through interviews with 19 autistic adolescents and adults in a qualitative, community-participatory study. We found seven major themes in these interviews: Erasure Conformity Isolation Oppression Hidden curriculum Misaligned school priorities Authority Our research highlights the systemic barriers autistic people face in educational settings that either go unnoticed or are intentionally ignored. We examine the impact of said barriers on outcomes and experiences that extend beyond the classroom. Specifically, we examine these themes’ negative impacts on identity formation, self-advocacy, and self-acceptance for autistic student
Whether they have a disability or not, a person must identify with disability in order to fully engage with the movement for a more equitable and inclusive society. This presentations shares a grounded theory of educators’ conceptions of disability based on interviews with preservice general educators and teacher education instructors. The theory, identification with disability, is a bridge between narrative imagination (Nussbaum, 1997) and disability identity (Darling & Heckert, 2010; Forber-Pratt & Zape, 2017). Narrative imagination is the ability to understand and share the feelings and experiences of others, and a strong disability identity requires disability acceptance, alignment with the social model of disability, and involvement with collective social change. Educators and family members who identify with disability are most equipped to empower individuals with complex support needs and collaborate to create a more socially just, democratic, and inclusive society.
Transition educators can be integral in supporting students with extensive support needs, including intellectual disability (ID) as they pursue meaningful post-school employment. One unique pathway to achieve employment involves creating a small business and pursuing self-employment. Self-employment occurs when an individual works for themself rather than working for an employer. Individuals with disabilities are more likely to pursue self-employment than individuals without disabilities, however, transition educators may be less familiar with self-employment and less prepared to support students with ID and their families achieve self-employment. In addition to describing five strategies that transition educators can use to increase awareness about self-employment while students are in high school, this structured discussion will also feature two parents and two self-advocates who started their businesses with the support of
