KU News Release

$4 million grant awarded to training project for persons with disabilities

LAWRENCE — A consortium headed by the Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities and the Institute for Human Development at University of Missouri-Kansas City has received a $4 million grant from the Administration on Developmental Disabilities to create a national training program to assist people with disabilities.

The collaborative five-year project will promote training to help people with intellectual and other disabilities practice self-determination, the concept that people with disabilities can and should determine how they live their own lives. The grant also will be used to demonstrate how advanced technology can be used in training and to create a national Web portal that allows users to download training to a portable media player, such as an iPod.

Co-principal investigators of the project are Carl F. Calkins, director of UMKC’s Institute for Human Development, and Michael L. Wehmeyer, director of KUCDD and professor of special education at KU. The consortium also includes the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois-Chicago, the Center on Human Development at the University of Oregon and the Westchester Institute for Human Development at New York Medical College.

The consortium also will form a national alliance on self-determination that will include self-advocates, families and national organizations.

Wehmeyer was one of the earliest proponents of self-determination and his research has long documented how the concept can work, especially in schools. Wehmeyer also is noted for his research in teaching children with multiple severe disabilities and in the use of technology by people with intellectual disabilities.

“Research has established that promoting the self-determination of people with disabilities results in a better quality of life, enhanced employment outcomes and greater independent living,” Wehmeyer said. “This important project will provide the impetus nationally to translate that research knowledge into practice and improve the quality of the lives of people with disabilities across the country.”

KUCDD is one of 13 centers in KU’s Life Span Institute, one of the largest research and development programs in the nation for the prevention and treatment of developmental disabilities. The institute includes more than 140 programs and projects located on the Lawrence campus, the KU Medical Center and in Kansas City, Overland Park and Parsons, Kan.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.