In my last blog, I shared examples of how a person who is applying for Social Security Disability benefits—either SSI or SSDI—must demonstrate that her/his conditions are expected to be long term and are significant enough to prevent the person from performing Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA), without special conditions, such as Impairment Related Work Expenses or Employer Subsidies.   As if the duration of disability and SGA criteria were not enough, each type of disability cash benefit...

My older son is applying for postsecondary programs.  He does not have a lot of patience for administrative processes, so he requires a lot of handholding.  He figures that since he has decent grades and since he will be getting his diploma, he meets the admissions criteria.  My response is yes, but…you still have to fulfill the bureaucratic criteria.  You have to complete the application.  You (or we) have to pay the application fee.  Your school has to provide your transcript.  You have to...

When you have a child with a disability, you want to focus on what s/he can do.  You hope that once the child reaches early adulthood, what the child can do evolves into paid employment.  At home, you teach your child to master household tasks like doing their own laundry, loading and unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming and raking leaves, etc.  At school, starting when your child turns 14 and a half, you work with the IEP and transition team to build pre-vocational skills into the goals. ...