Disability News, Benefits, and Health Resources
Seventy million American adults live with a disability. Another 1.3 billion people worldwide share that experience, roughly 16 percent of the global population. Disabled World (DW) reports on the policies, research, benefits, and assistive technology that shape their lives. Coverage centers on the United States: Social Security and SSI payments, Medicare and Medicaid rules, accessibility law, and medical research relevant to American readers. International stories appear where they intersect with American policy or practice. Publishing since 2004 under the banner Towards Tomorrow. Learn more about us.
Did You Know:
- 1 - Autism diagnoses have risen dramatically: about 1 in 31 eight-year-old children (3.2 percent) were identified with autism in 2022 CDC surveillance data, up from 1 in 36 in 2020 and just 1 in 150 when the CDC first began tracking it among children born in the early 1990s.
- 2 - Disability rises sharply with age: about 8.7 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 report a disability, climbing to 43.9 percent among adults aged 65 and older.
- 3 - Childhood disability tracks closely with family income - 18 percent of U.S. children in families below the poverty level report a disability, compared with 11 percent of children in families at or above 200 percent of the poverty line. View more Disability Statistics.
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Recent Disability News and Information
Legislators Failing Disabled Americans Under Trump
Opinion piece on elected legislators failing to speak out against Trump administration policies that cut benefits and rights for disabled Americans. Published: 26 Jun 2026.
Gene-Edited Beagles as Autism Research Models
A peer-reviewed Perspective in Genomic Psychiatry examines gene-edited Beagle dogs as complementary models for autism spectrum disorder research. Published: 24 Jun 2026.
Specialized Autism Support Programs in High Schools
How Specialized Autism Support programs in schools provide individualized academic, behavioral, social, and life skills help for autistic students. Published: 23 Jun 2026.
Bigger Human Bodies Evolved Late, Study of Fossils Finds
New PNAS research on 386 fossils shows human body size jumped later within the genus Homo rather than growing steadily across the whole family tree. Published: 23 Jun 2026.
Popular Pages
Disability Loans and Grants: Financial assistance programs available for low-income families, seniors, and disabled students.
Famous People with Disabilities: Lists of well-known people with various disabilities and conditions who contributed to society.
Awareness Ribbon Colors: Guide to awareness ribbon colors for health, medical conditions, disability, and other causes.
Adult Height to Weight Chart: Ideal weight-to-height ratio for adult females and males.
Child to Teen Height to Weight Ratio Charts: Average height-to-weight ratios for children and teens organized by age.
Newly Updated Pages
Famous Blind and Vision Impaired People: Discover famous blind and visually impaired people whose achievements in music, science, literature, politics, and sports span history and the globe.
Notable Figures with Hearing Impairments Who Made History: Discover famous people with hearing impairments who have shaped history, proving that deafness is no barrier to remarkable achievement and innovation.
AFB Launches Accessible Helen Keller Digital Archive: The American Foundation for the Blind has launched the Helen Keller Archive, a fully accessible digital collection of more than 160,000 artifacts.
American Sign Language: How ASL Works and How to Learn: A practical overview of American Sign Language, covering its grammar, the HOLME elements, the manual alphabet, regional variation, and how to begin learning ASL.
Stephen Hawking: His Life, Science, and Life With ALS: A biographical account of physicist Stephen Hawking, tracing his education, work on black holes and the Big Bang, and his decades living and working with ALS.