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Wednesday, January 20 at 8 p.m. – Soundprint Presents After Graduation: Meeting Special Needs/ Deaf & Proud

(Rochester, NY) – Many learning disabled students are finding that they learn more readily with a variety of technology assistance and human support in their classrooms. But what happens once they leave school? Whether moving into the workforce, or on to higher education, most high school graduates discover they must adjust to new environments on their own and learn to advocate for themselves. In Soundprints' After Graduation: Meeting Special Needs, airing Wednesday, January 20 at 8 p.m. on AM 1370/FM-HD91.5-2, Alyne Ellis takes a look at how some schools and universities are trying to ease the transition of learning disabled students to a life after graduation.

Immediately following, Soundprint presents Deaf and Proud. This story focuses on people who choose to live inside the very powerful deaf culture and have no desire to be "fixed" so that they can be more like hearing people. It's a world most hearing people are unlikely to ever reach without the bridge of sign language. It might come as a surprise to learn that deaf parents don't grieve, but rather celebrate the birth of a deaf child. (And that one of the most important lessons they must teach them is that passing wind in public makes noise!).

Both of these programs are part of WXXI and Al Sigl Community of Agencies' annual Dialogue on Disability: The Herman & Margaret Schwartz Community Series, a week-long outreach initiative designed to stimulate community dialogue about the perspectives and abilities of people with disabilities. At the heart of this initiative is programming, broadcast on WXXI-TV and AM 1370 that celebrates the amazing lives of people with disabilities. Dialogue on Disability runs January 18-24. Dialogue on Disability is made possible thanks to support from the Fred L. Emerson Foundation.

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