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rock formations with bright horizon, with a circular body of bright blue water in the middle, and a tall rock formation in the center or the water

Lifetime access pass to national parks and recreational land offers accessible options to Americans with disabilities  

Posted on | by Court Cox

Spring sunshine continues to taunt summer loving Kentuckians with its promise of the radiant afternoon rays that fade into calm evening glow. It’s a great time to begin making summer plans, and for those with a permanent disability, you might consider applying for a free lifetime access pass to all U.S. national parks and recreational lands. 

The pass covers entrance fees and standard amenity fees at all federal recreation sites for the entire car of anyone with a permanent disability (at locations that charge by vehicle) or for the passholder and up to three guests (at locations that charge per person). The pass is valid for day use only (no camping permits) and does not cover expanded amenities, such as guided tours, boat launching or parking. 

The access pass can be acquired for free on-site at nearly any federal recreation site or, with a $10 processing fee, ordered online or by mail. When applying in-person, it is advisable to contact the site ahead of time to ensure the pass availability. Application materials include proof of U.S. citizenship or permanent residency and documentation of permanent disability.  

Accepted documentation includes proof of permanent physical, cognitive or sensory disability in the form of a signed letter from a physician, a document issued by a federal agency (such as the Department of Veterans Affairs or proof of Social Security Disability Income) or a document issued by a state agency (such as a vocational rehabilitation agency).  You can acquire an access pass in-person at any one of Kentucky’s 22 federal recreation sites.  

Sunset horizon with bare rock formations
Half Dome, Yosemite National Park

While the access pass grants entrance into all national recreational sites, it does not come with the accessibility guides needed by many of its users. Searching for accessibility information when planning a trip can be tedious, and not every federal agency makes the information as easily accessible as others. Locations managed by the National Parks Service (NPS) tend to have clear and thorough accessibility information. Read about the history of the NPS and accessibility, the concluding article of the agency’s Disability History series. 

Kentuckians boast claim to Mammoth Cave, one of the nation’s 63 national parks, though you won’t necessarily benefit from your access pass at this location, since park entry is free to all, and the access pass does not waive guided tour fees. Still, if you are not looking to travel further to places such as the Badlands, Grand Canyon, Yosemite or Zion National Parks (where there are, in fact, entrance fees to be waived by the access pass), look into the accessible activities available at Mammoth Cave, such as the aptly named the “Accessible Tour.”  

Rock formations in Mammoth Cave with a purple backlit glow
Mammoth Cave rock formations

In the Accessible Tour, visitors meet at the entrance of the visitor center and then follow a tour guide by personal vehicle directly to the entrance of the cave, where they descend via elevator into the Snowball Room–a dining area located 267 feet underground, named for the snowball-shaped calcium carbonate formations on the ceiling. There begins a two-hour journey through unique gypsum formations and curious cave writing on a route “expressly created for visitors with mobility devices such as motorized wheelchairs or walkers.” 

The Accessible Tour is not the only accessible portion of Mammoth Cave’s infrastructure. Broken down by category to be applicable to the needs of various disability types (physical/mobility, Deaf/hearing loss, blind/low vision and cognitive/learning), a full accessibility overview of Mammoth Cave can be found here. 

Other accessible recreational sites of note in Kentucky include Land Between the Lake’s, Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace and Big South Fork. Of Kentucky’s 22 recreational land sites, the following is a list of each that has a webpage with clear accessibility notes. The name of the location links to the location’s general web page, and the sub-lists describe accessibility notes or link to dedicated accessibility pages. 

Accessible Federal Recreation Sites in Kentucky 

  1. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace (Hodgenville, KY) 
  1. Barren River Lake (Glasgow, KY) 
    • Accessibility information included in dropdown menu about halfway down page  
  2. Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area (Stearns, KY)
  3. Daniel Boone National Forest (main office in Winchester, KY) 
  4. Lake Barkley (Grand Rivers, KY) 
    • No dedicated accessibility page found.
    • Main site states that Canal Campground has accessible restrooms and shower house.
  5.  Land Between the Lakes (Golden Pond, KY) 
  6. Mammoth Cave National Park (Mammoth Cave, KY) 

To share additional information related to the accessibility of federal recreation sites in Kentucky, please email Beth Potter at beth.potter@uky.edu. The above list may be updated accordingly. 

Thoughts from HDI’s Glen Jennings On Autism Acceptance Month

Posted on | by Glen Jennings

This April, we recognize Autism Acceptance Month. This is a month where we celebrate what autistic people are capable of and work to support mainstream acceptance of autistic people. But it’s also a time to recognize systemic obstacles to autistic people. 

And there are many. 

Think about the ways in which society has a normative model of social interaction, and all the ways in which someone who cannot follow that model might be at a disadvantage. If you’re in a job interview, not making enough eye contact to satisfy your interviewer may put you out of a job that you’d otherwise have, but forcing eye contact is often difficult for autistic people. Even against an otherwise equal neurotypical candidate, an autistic applicant is at a disadvantage through no fault of their own. Once in a job, work environments can be uninclusive. Office social structures can be difficult to navigate, office politics can leave us at a brutal disadvantage, especially among autistic people with customer-facing jobs. Factors like this are likely just one part of the reason autistic people have a catastrophically low employment rate. 

Though the social aspects of autism are the most visible to neurotypical people, there are a host of other ways that life in the workplace and beyond is challenging. Sensory issues can make it difficult to navigate the world. I always have at least two pairs of polarized sunglasses close to me because bright sunlight is hard to see in and gives me a massive headache. The general noise of loud environments with a lot of conversational buzz can quickly become overwhelming. And fluorescent lights – which are used in many offices, schools, or grocery stores – can cause headaches. Staying under them for too long is physically exhausting for me, and there are many times in my life where I’ve had no real choice but to do so. 

We navigate a world that was not built with us in mind. Acceptance Month is about moving towards one that is. 

But while that discussion is important, I think we shouldn’t end the conversation there. 

As an autistic person, I feel like I also have a lot of joy to celebrate this month. 

The national view of autism has, despite these obstacles, changed radically in the since I was diagnosed almost 25 years ago. And as someone who’s so fond of pointing out that autism isn’t all doom and gloom, it feels wrong to point only to the areas where we face obstacles. 

So I want to celebrate how far we’ve come. How people are more educated about autism in this day and age than ever before. And that only leads to better outcomes for autistic people – fewer obstacles to diagnosis, which have historically been many especially for women and people of color, more acceptance and understanding and wider access to accommodations and resources. 

The fight isn’t over, but we’ve made incredible progress. 

And more than that, I want to celebrate community. An incredible autistic community has formed over the past few decades, focusing on self-advocacy and embracing our authentic and autistic selves. 

We see the world in unique ways, we have special interests that allow us to love and appreciate the world around us with such depth, and we can bring such unique perspectives and sensibilities to the world. 

And the more we obliterate those obstacles, the more autistic people will grow to recognize and accept the potential they have. And by accepting that potential, you get a better world – whether you’re autistic or not.

This month, we celebrate autistic people. This month, we work for a future where autistic people feel heard and included, and where people value us like they would anyone else.

This article represents the opinions of the author and interviewee, not that of the University of Kentucky. 

Thoughts from HDI’s Bev Harp On Autism Acceptance Month

Posted on | by Glen Jennings

Bev Harp, Project Director for HDI’s Innovative Supports for Autistic Workers, remembers the days when the only rhetoric about autism was awareness rhetoric. 

And she remembers that awareness could mean radically different things to different people.

“To some people that meant being aware that autistic people exist

and that autism is a disability and needs to be accommodated. To others, it meant being aware that there are more and more of us being identified. You would see Autism Awareness buttons that said things like ‘1 in 88. Are you scared yet?’” She said. “This was the heyday of the vaccine panic, so you’d see those messages about poisoned and ruined children too. Pure fearmongering.”

In the past few years, as the number of recorded autism cases has climbed to 1 in 36, a new idea has started making the rounds. 

Instead of autism awareness, focus on autism acceptance. 

April is Autism Acceptance Month – a time for celebrating autistic people and advocating for a better world for them. And there are a few key differences between the two ideas – awareness is simply focused on knowledge of autism. One can be aware of autism. Acceptance, on the other hand, focuses on building a society that is inclusive and welcoming to autistic people. 

“We don’t need a ‘cure’ for autism, we don’t need to change autistic people so they seem more neurotypical, but what we need is to build a more equitable society where we can all thrive,” Harp said. “We are allowed to take up space and to participate in whatever facets of society we choose.”

And that means reframing the way that our society approaches autism and views autistic people. 

“We are now seeing more than 2 percent of our population fit the criteria for autism,” Harp said. “It’s time to stop thinking of autism as something to be remediated and recognize that it is and always has been one of the many natural and neutral ways to be human.”

And with that, there are many barriers to still overcome. 

“We still have around 85 percent unemployment. We still have people being tortured at the Judge Rotenberg Center and other institutions ‘for their own good.’ Kids being segregated, adults deprived of autonomy,” Harp said. “Of course, eugenics would be the ultimate form of ableism. The search for the ‘cause’ of autism has always been wrapped up in a fantasy of a world without autistic people. Somehow people can picture their autistic loved ones as still themselves yet also entirely different.” 

And while there is a lot of work to do, it is worth noting that autistic community has created a powerful shared community among autistic people. Harp said that the term autistic culture has had quite a journey over time, starting just as a term to describe art, traditions and practices common to autistic people. From there it came to represent more and more as autistic people shared more of their interests and passions. It became about those passions and how autistic people relate to them. 

“My favorite aspect of autistic culture is the pastime of taking any sort of source material (a movie, a conversation, a piece of feldspar), the simpler the better, and analyzing it and turning it over to see every angle and finding out what else in the world it echoes or connects with,” she said. “Loving a thing so much that you must attend to it properly, you must know that you’ve had every possible thought you could ever have had about it. It’s not in the nature of the thing (object, person, idea, activity), but in how an autistic person interacts with the thing.”

In the end, Harp knows understands that people calling for awareness mean well.  are sympathetic for autistic people, even when calling for awareness. She challenges those people to consider where their sympathy compassion is coming from and consider where it could be better used. 

“They see that the lives of autistic people can be tough,” Harp said. “Why is their best solution getting rid of us and not making the societal changes that would allow us all to live better lives? Why would we prefer to rewire a brain rather than change a policy? What values are we demonstrating here?

This article represents the opinions of the author and interviewee, not that of the University of Kentucky. 

Empower Kentuckians with disabilities this One Day for UK

Posted on | by Haley Potter

One Day for UK is April 19th, 2023. One Day for UK is a 24-hour day of giving where alumni, faculty, staff, parents, friends and fans can support their favorite college, cause or area. It is a day to celebrate the University of Kentucky’s achievements and to ensure the university’s future success.

What is the Human Development Institute?

Established in 1969, the Human Development Institute (HDI) is the state’s Center on Disability and is part of a nationwide network of University Centers for Excellence. Our vision is the full participation and contribution of all people with disabilities in all aspects of society.

What will my donation do?

This One Day for UK, your generous donation will impact countless people with disabilities in Kentucky and the nation. 

Your donation could:

  1. Equip a person with a disability to find employment
  2. Empower someone to learn how to support their own mental health
  3. Support expectant parents who receive a down syndrome diagnosis
  4. Encourage the recovery of families of the opioid epidemic
  5. Teach an educator sign language to use in their elementary school classroom

To donate, visit www.onedayforuk.uky.edu. 

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One Day for UK is a 24-hour day of giving where alumni, faculty, staff, parents, friends and fans can support their favorite college, cause or area. It is a day to celebrate the University of Kentucky’s achievements and to ensure the university’s future success. All gifts support our comprehensive campaign, Kentucky Can: The 21st Century Campaign, which increases opportunities for student success, funds innovative research, improves health care, strengthens the alumni network and enhances athletic programs.

Visit www.onedayforuk.uky.edu to track our progress and to make your gift.

A group of wooden blocks in various shapes and colors

Child Care Aware of Kentucky Block Project

Posted on | by Glen Jennings

It might be surprising to learn that one of the most powerful tools for teaching children during early development is the humble building block. And yet, according to Cynthia Willmarth, Early Education Quality Coach for Child Care Aware (CCA) of Kentucky at the University of Kentucky Human Development Institute (HDI), they can have a profound impact on children in their earliest years.

“If you look at an early childhood curriculum, we talk about cognitive development, which is language, science, math, and all those things. We talk about social/emotional development, which includes learning to take turns, cooperate, being part of a social group, and physical development, which is both large motor and small motor,” Willmarth said. According to Willmarth, blocks can help young children learn every one of these concepts. She compared blocks, which allow for endless creativity to something like a puzzle, which only has one solution.

The Block Project aims to help early childhood educators harness the power of that tool. Funded by the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood through the 0-5 Early Childhood Regional Collaborative with support from CCA Coaches, this effort is a model for partnership and teamwork. Mary Howard, HDI’s Division Director for Early Childhood, says, “This was a wonderful collaboration that built on our community partnerships in the region. A great opportunity for our CCA coaches to expand the knowledge of child care providers while also modeling locally and nationally a way to build strong partnerships that benefit all”.

Child Care Aware coaches developed a curriculum around blocks, shared ways to make an effective block center, identified the kind of materials that go in block centers and discussed the teacher’s role. “But it’s not so simple as putting a bunch of wooden blocks on the floor and letting kids do what they will. You need the proper equipment and the proper training. To get a set of unit blocks or a set of hollow blocks with the necessary shelves for proper organization and storage, you’re looking at probably $1,000…if you have ten classrooms, that’s $10,000,” Willmarth said.

There are many times that a federal program will provide a quality set of blocks and everything you need to make them work…but not the training to understand how to unlock their full potential. According to Linda Fowles, an Early Education Safety Coach with Child Care Aware, that training is essential too. “I don’t think they do understand the potential of the materials,” Fowles said.

This is a big part of what makes the Block Project special – most trainings do not provide the materials, and often when schools receive funding for blocks, the training to use them correctly doesn’t come with it. The Block Project provides both. “I think that’s why this project left such an impression,” Fowles said. “That was another very important component of this training, to share simple information and simple concepts with them. Not only did they receive these expensive materials…the teachers also learned these very simple concepts.”

The results, Fowles said, spoke for themselves. “They were stunned at how much the children enjoyed playing in the blocks,” she said. “They were so impressed with it that they talked to their school administrators about ordering more sets of blocks for other classrooms. Until they were exposed to this project, they didn’t realize the importance of these materials.”
Almost 20 different programs have participated in the Block Project, each receiving at least $1,000 worth of materials.

Learn more about early childhood education in Kentucky at the following websites.

Child Care Aware of Kentucky at childcareawareky.org.

Kentucky Governor’s Office of Early Childhood and Regional Collaboratives at kyecac.ky.gov