This remarkable book is the first to focus on disability arts.  Drawn from over 50 of the author's speeches, it eschews the historical charity based, patrician assumptions about disabled people and the barriers and prejudices that have kept them invisible in education, the arts and every day life.  Instead, it offers readers the excitement and diversity of disability arts and the artistic expression of formerly excluded sectors of society, such as people with learning disabilities and survivors of the mental health system.  It is concerned not with their medical impairments but with the insight and originality of their art works that are beginning to fill a space on the canvas of arts history that has too long been blank.

Bodies in Commotion is the first book to explore the lively intersection of performance studies and disability studies, provoking new ways of looking at body, space, spectatorship, and identity.  In this groundbreaking collection, leading critics, artists, and activists take on topics that range from theater and dance to multimedia performance art, agit-prop, American Sign Language theater, and wheelchair sports.  The multiple perspectives illustrate how disabled bodies are "bodies in commotion" -- bodies that dance across artistic and discursive boundaries, challenging our understanding of both disability and performance. Bodies in Commotion exposes for the first time the mutually interpretive qualities of these two emerging fields, making this a unique, dynamic new resource for artists, activists, and scholars.

In the early '90s, Lefens, a painter, goes to the Metheny School for students with cerebral palsy and other disabilities to show slides of his work.  As this intensely moving memoir shows, he becomes obsessed with finding ways to help students, who are in wheelchairs and have no use of their arms or hands, learning to express themselves, devising methods that allow them the freedom to paint.

This clearly written, thought provoking manual includes over 50 exercises and improvisations designed to stimulate and challenge students -- disabled and non-disabled -- at all levels of dance.

Point of Contact brings together contributions by leading writers, artists, and scholars to provide a broad look at the intersection of disability and the arts.  The essays, poetry, memoirs, and fiction offers an invaluable overview of disability culture, aesthetics, and identity, and provides insight into the way disabilities are affected by and affect contemporary culture.

Norden (communication, Univ. of Massachusetts) analyzes the film industry's depiction of physically disabled characters from the era of silent films to the present.  He criticizes several conceptual approaches, including the tendency to present narratives from an able-bodied person's perspective, as in The Elephant Man (1980), which is drawn from the attending doctor's memoirs.  Especially illuminating are discussions of how films portraying a disability are perceived by people with that disability.

This volume addresses disability in theatre, and features all new work, including critical essays, interviews, personal essays, and an original play.  It fills a gap in scholarship while promoting the profile of disability in theatre, examining the issues surrounding disability in many well-known plays, including "Children of a Lesser God", "The Elephant Man", etc.

Plimpton and Smith (founder of Very Special Arts) present interviews with artists who lead creative and fulfilling lives despite severe handicaps.  In telling their stories, they concentrate on their aspirations and achievements rather than on their disabilities, demonstrating the power of art to help people overcome tremendous odds.

Through an analysis of various disabled performance artists and companies, this book investigates core issues affecting both "everyday" and "art-framed" performances.  It addresses performances as social and cultural interventions, and as acts on the edges of representational categories and embodied presence. Disabled performers challenge established aesthetic norms every time they enter the public domain.

This groundbreaking work explores how children and adults who have been blind since birth can both perceive and draw pictures.  John M. Kennedy, a perception psychologist, relates how pictures in raised form can be understood by the blind, and how untrained blind people can make recognizable sketches of objects, situations, and events using new methods for raised-line drawing.  According to Kennedy, the ability to draw develops in blind people as it does in the sighted.

The development of the National Theatre of the Deaf is recounted here by Baldwin, an advocate of the hearing-impaired.  Spanning a period from 1959 to the present, the book begins with the author's serendipitous meeting with a deaf actress, Phyllis Frelich, and their collaboration on the breakthrough play, Children of a Lesser God.

The 1957 classic American musical "West Side Story" has been staged by countless community and school theater groups, but none more ambitious than the 2000 production by MacMurray College, a small school in Jacksonville, Illinois.  Diane Brewer, the new drama head at the college, determined to add an extra element to the usual demands of putting on a show by having deaf students perform half of the parts. "Deaf Side Story" presents a fascinating narrative of Brewer and the cast's efforts to mount this challenging play.

In detailed biographical entries, this volume highlights the accomplishments of 150 outstanding deaf individuals, including several Nobel Prize laureate scientists, an Academy Award winning actress, poets, writers, world-class dancers, and a cadre of painters and sculptors.  Emphasis is on their contributions to the arts and sciences, and particular attention is given to how being deaf influenced their world view and their direction as well as how they overcame attitudinal barriers.

Bragg, a deaf person born of deaf parents in Depression-era New York City, tells how he realized his dream of becoming an actor and pays tribute to his family, deaf friends and others to whom "sign language was a perfectly normal and acceptable way of communicating." The richness and variety found in signing and in the deaf culture permeate his montage of stories.

This is an account of a search for ways to teach dance to the profoundly deaf in a variety of schools and settings.  Naomi Benari describes the methods and games she devised with the children to heighten their awareness of rhythm, music and the breath inherent in every dance movement.

This one-of-a-kind guide eases your way through the often confusing world of using a sign language interpreter.  Written by a practicing professional, includes solid, practical advice on translating dialogue, placement, interpreting for children, safety, and more.  For both novice and experienced theater interpreters.  It is a must for anyone interested in the exciting world of theatrical interpretation.

This book shows how some dyslexics can be highly gifted musicians.  It is important, however, that they should not be put off from studying music just because - at least in the early stages - many of them find it difficult to read and remember the symbols of musical notation.

This special edition includes:  Final Fair House Accessibility Guidelines, Design Guidelines for Accessible/Adaptable Dwellings, and Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board - Amendments to Final ADA Guidelines.

"Works so well that you wonder why there aren't lots more books like it . . . Deaf children will welcome this joyful story that talks, without condescension, about the fun they have.  Hearing kids, too, will want to learn some of the sign language, and with the help of an adult, they can practice the hand alphabet shown at the back of the book." — Starred, Booklist

"As in Moses Goes to a Concert (1998), this joyful picture book tells a story in written English and also in American Sign Language (ASL). This time the focus is directly on how deaf children learn at their special public school--in the classroom, on the playground, and on the school bus. The warm line-and-watercolor illustrations show the diversity of Moses' city classroom, the fun the children have together, and the special way they learn." — Booklist

"PreS-Gr. 2. Having previously tailed young Moses to a concert (1998) and to school (2000), Millman now accompanies the deaf youngster and his hearing family to the circus. Moses uses American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with his parents and little sister, and children looking at this book can easily follow along. The richly detailed double-page spreads and the simple, descriptive text make room for boxed sequences showing Moses demonstrating signs for children to learn.." — Booklist

Based in 19th century Vienna, Beethoven Lives Upstairs is a story of the idiosyncratic but creatively brilliant Beethoven who is struggling with his deafness as he composes his Ninth Symphony.  This item is available in print, audio cassette (with music), and teacher's notes.

In this new edition of her well-established book, Elaine Streeter helps parents and carers to learn not only how they can add to a child's fun, but also how they can engage a child in interactive communication at a level the child can make sense of - one of the most rewarding things anyone can do.

Based on the belief that every child has a right to participate in a variety of art experiences appropriate to the child's needs and interests, this resource guide offers visual art activities developed specifically for children with autism, Asperger Syndrome and other pervasive developmental disorders who are served in a variety of settings.

Wings To Fly is a comprehensive nuts and bolts handbook which describes concrete, proven techniques and lesson plans to make drama accessible to people with disabilities of all ages. It is written for use by professionals in education, recreation, theatre, and therapy settings.

"Today, as a decade ago, Silver's book represents a landmark in the development of art therapy." — Art Therapy, Journal of the American Art

Recent research has shown that art therapy can be particularly effective for children with autism and related communication disorders.  This book presents a new model of practice, which primarily focuses on communication difficulties.  The authors describe how negative behaviors and subsequent tension may be alleviated when the autistic child is involved in interactive art making with the therapist.

This handbook shares many years of invaluable experience, providing teachers and parents with a wealth of hands-on activities and proven techniques to stimulate learning and help students realize their full potential.

This book has been written to help both the regular education, and art and special education teachers, both pre- and in-service, better understand some of the issues and realities of providing education and remediation to children with disabilities.  The book is also offered as a model of a concept that has governed the author's personal and professional career of over thirty years - the concept that we must live, learn and develop through art - that art belongs at the core of the public school curriculum.