Dr. Mary Ellen Rooney speaks with the clarity and conviction of someone who has advocated for disability rights in education for decades. Originally a classroom teacher with a degree in special education, she holds an Ed.D. from Columbia University’s Teachers College, in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies’ Program in Intellectual Disabilities and Autism.

View our Current List of Parks in NYC with Adaptive Swings and find options in your neighborhood.

Public playgrounds fall under the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, which apply to new construction, alterations, or renovations of existing playgrounds after March 15, 2012.

Using children’s books in the classroom, both fiction and nonfiction, can help students make real-world connections and broaden their perspectives, especially when incorporating literature by and centering people who have too frequently been underrepresented in educational literature because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, or disability.

When it comes to children’s literature that centers on disability, there is a growing number of picture books, graphic novels, and early readers that provide educators with strength-based representations of people with disabilities.