July 26, 2020 marks the 30 year anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act, or ADA, into law. While I tend to focus on sharing stories that center around disability, and mostly speaking about all the ways we can do better when it comes to disability and accessibility, today I want to focus on the ways the ADA and it’s predecessor, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, has positively impacted our family personally. Additionally, I’ll share some resources where you and your family can learn more about the history of the disability civil rights movement and some of my favorite voices from the disability community to follow today.

The Early Days–People Showing Up

When I think back to our early weeks and months of Lamp’s life I remember people just showing up–seemingly out of the clear blue–to guide us, and lead us to where we needed to go next. The day she was born a woman walked into my hospital room–I’m sure she introduced herself, but I don’t remember her name or her specialty–looked at Lamp’s hand and said, “That will be a great hand for driving a power wheelchair one day!” At the time I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of my daughter being a wheelchair user, but she was there and she planted that prophetic seed. Who was she? During my 4 day post partum hospital stay with Lamp, doctors and specialists dropped by and made appointments for us. They didn’t ask us if we wanted to go to these appointments, they told us we needed to go to these appointments. And it was exactly the right thing to do.

One of those appointments for early childhood education services, which meant that a group of therapists came to our house a few times to sort of evaluate Lamp, do a little therapy and offer support. We were already getting therapy from the children’s hospital and I didn’t see a huge need for this at home therapy, so we discontinued. (Also, I’ll be honest—I was a little clueless about all of this and should have asked a lot more questions.)

Along with these early childhood services, Lamp was eligible for free preschool when she turned 3. Since we were living in Texas during that time that would have automatically meant all day preschool 5 days a week, and I didn’t want or need her to be in school that much, therefore we ended up at a private preschool 2 days a week. However, when we moved back to Ohio, and again qualified for preschool, in our district it was a half day, 4 days a week program we jumped on it. Not only did we really love the teachers and the program, she was picked up and dropped off in our driveway every day. What’s not to love about that?

School Years–IEP’s and Accessibility

Sometime during this process (it’s a blur now) we created her first IEP, an Individualized Education Program, that made sure to cover all areas of assistance she would need. When she started kindergarten the next year, again transportation to and from school was included in her IEP–which was emphasized to me more than once that an IEP is a legally binding document– as well as providing a one-on-one assistant to help her out during the day. Her assistant would do everything from helping her transfer out of her chair, transition from class to class, and help her during lunch and recess. Eventually we all realized she didn’t need a one-on-one assistant, and she was provided support aids who were always close at hand (but who could also help other students as well) to give assistance when needed, but who stayed a little more in the background so as to help foster her independence as well.

And before she actually started kindergarten, the school administrators came to our house, to meet with us and discuss all these things in detail. Additionally, the woman who would be her aid for a couple of years also came to our house so we could get to know her before signing off on her being a full time aid to our daughter.

