First Hand History

"They do treat me differently. They treat a little bit like an out-of-control child... most of the time."

"We didn't have a lot of those kids in the classroom. Which I think wasn't a good thing because we really didn't get to know those kids. We just thought, 'Oh. They're in special ed. Something's wrong with them.' But I think we got smarter and we realized that these kids are just kids."

"I don't think we should discriminate against the disabled any more than we should discriminate against anyone who is different than ourselves. They should have equal opportunity to do whatever they'd like within course reason and the law."

"You can see the confusion on their faces, followed sometimes by a good amount of staring. I understand that it's usually just confusion and curiosity, but sometimes it also involves a significant amount of unease in their interaction with him."

"I think the good news is that we're reaching an age where you can see a lot of successful Russian adoptees and other international adoptees because they are now becoming adults. People are able to see that they are functioning adults. And the more they see that, the more the stigma goes away. "

"What’s hard about it -- what is really hard for the parent -- is they don’t always get the help they need because it's not available and that makes them mad and discouraged and kind of angry. People get angry at the system because they have to push so hard."

"Most people think that dyslexia means that you reverse your letters. But that's actually not accurate at all. Dyslexia is an auditory processing disorder, which means that kids struggle with putting sounds to letters. It's hard for them to connect a letter to a sound and then blend that sound."

"There are people out there that are loving and want to help you succeed, so do your best to find them."

"When I lived in Texas I actually got arrested when I protested outside the Governor's mansion when George Bush was Governor."

"We took it to court and we won -- and that visibly changed the country. Every curbside you see in the country was because of that act. Every single circuit followed our decision, but that wasn’t the most memorable one."

"If I would say anything, it’s that the modern psychiatric hospital -- their purpose has changed. It’s to get the individual back into society as quickly as possible."