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WBFO Disabilities Beat

The WBFO Disabilities Beat aims to promote equity and acceptance by elevating marginalized voices, holding corporations and government accountable, and combatting misinformation and stigmatization through education about the disability community.

Reports from the Disabilities Beat provide Western New York residents with essential information about the challenges facing people with disabilities and content that promotes understanding. In-depth, original, long-form reporting addresses issues relevant to people living with disabilities, their families, caregivers, community leaders, and decision-makers. Coverage also contextualizes important regional and national news to consider the unique and often-overlooked implications of economic, education, policy and environmental impacts on the disability community. Reporting will also tie disability rights to discussions about the economy (e.g., wage gaps for employees with disabilities), civic participation (e.g., accessibility of ballot machines), mobility (e.g., paratransit availability), and more.

Every Wednesday, hear 7-8 minute Disabilities Beat reports on WBFO during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
A graphic with a red background. The first level of text is the WBFO NPR logo. There is a line below it and then another line of text reading "Disabilities Beat."

The WBFO Disabilities Beat is funded in part by the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation.

Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation logo

Latest from the WBFO Disabilities Beat
  • Todd Vaarwerk, a white man with grey-brown hair and beard, speaks at a press conference. He is sitting in a manual wheelchair, wearing dark pants, a brown windbreaker and light colored shirt. He's also wearing eyeglasses and a baseball hat. His hands are in his pockets. A group of people are standing behind him, in front of a paratransit bus.
    State
    Disabilities Beat: Personal care in New York is about to change
    Emyle Watkins
    In New York, hundreds of organizations administer the Medicaid-funded Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program - or CDPAP. This program allows people with disabilities to hire their own personal care aids, who are paid through these organizations, which are considered fiscal intermediaries, or FIs. But in a last minute curve-ball, the state included a move to a single FI in their state budget.
  • Vicki Vigorito (left) holds a set of headphones to her head. She looks amazed and is looking across the table at Andrea Gustafson (right), who is explaining how the LightSound works. Vigorito has long brown hair with bangs and is wearing a green jacket. Gustafson has curly black hair that fades to a red-pink color and is wearing a black blouse. Gustafson's hands are on the green square box that is the LightSound, on top of a table with a black tablecloth. There are also tactile eclipse books on the table. Behind them is another pink LightSound on a tripod and other people standing behind them on a running track.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: Did you know you can hear the eclipse?
    Emyle Watkins
    Post-eclipse it seems like most people talked about their visual experience on April 8th. However, across the country, many people experienced the eclipse though a sonification, or a conversion of the light of the sun into sound. WBFO Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins visited Buffalo State on eclipse day to hear how they were using a LightSound device to make the eclipse audibly accessible. Watkins speaks with Dr. Jen Connelly, a disabled astronomer and the associate director of Buffalo State’s planetarium about not only how they made this happen, but why they need more resources like this. Meanwhile, WBFO Reporter Alex Simone took the device with him to a park in Erie County to capture a recording.
  • The Autism and Grief Project Logo is on the left, it is a bold circle with a dotted circle inside of it. Both are blue. Inside the circles is a blue outlined sun coming over a horizon. In the bottom right corner of the logo are the silhouettes of two people hugging. One person is light blue and the other is dark blue. On the right is a headshot of MeiMei Lui, a woman with curly dark hair, freckles and brown eyes. She is smiling and wearing a blue shirt and in-ear headphones.
    Disabilities Beat: Navigating grief when you or someone you love is autistic
    Emyle Watkins
    April is Autism Acceptance Month. While a lot of news this month will focus around what autism is and different programs led by or for people who are autistic, one conversation that isn't had enough is how autistic people experience and navigate grief.
  • The moment of totality during a solar eclipse in Glendo, Wyo., on Aug. 21, 2017.
    Local
    Apps, resources and advice for watching the eclipse when you have a disability
    Emyle Watkins
    WBFO's Disabilities Beat has been covering how people with disabilities can enjoy the eclipse safely and equitably over the past several months. Below you'll find stories you can read for more advice, listen to for interesting interviews, as well as a compiled list of resources that have been mentioned to us.
  • A woman with short white hair sits across from a man with short grey hair wearing glasses at a table with microphones and newspapers. In the background is a window to a producer booth where a man with short black hair, facial hair and glasses sits at a computer with a microphone.
    Local
    How local radio can help make the eclipse accessible to people with disabilities
    Emyle Watkins
    Many local organizations have been finding ways to make the eclipse accessible to people with disabilities, and among them is a local volunteer-driven free radio service for people with vision and print disabilties. WBFO's Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins spoke with Michael Benzin from Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service about how they are using their local radio program to help make the eclipse accessible to people with disabilities.
  • Gail Vaughan, a vision teacher at Williamsville Central Schools, points to the edge of the Perkins Brailler. She uses the brailler to create braille learning materials for students who have vision disabilities. In the photo you see her finger pointing to the grey machine, which has braille on a page coming out of it. Her nails are painted with a black and white design.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: Tactile images help teach the eclipse, but finding them can be a challenge
    Holly Kirkpatrick
    For students who may be low vision or blind, learning about the eclipse has to include accessible materials, like tactile images. Last week, Reporter Holly Kirkpatrick visited Williamsville Central Schools to speak to Gail Vaughan, the district's teacher for students with vision disabilities and Mark Percy, the district’s planetarium director about the need for more accessible eclipse education materials and how they developed their curriculum.
  • Total eclipse of the Sun. The moon covers the sun in a solar eclipse.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: Why plain language matters when educating on the eclipse
    Emyle Watkins
    WBFO’s Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins speaks with Thomas Ess, the Vice President for Emergency Management at People Inc, a disability-services agency in Western New York. We discuss why plain language communication matters, how organizations have adapted existing materials for the people they serve, as well as how the eclipse is changing operations for group homes and programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
  • A photo of a framed, undated photo of the Catalano family. In the top row on the left is James Catalano, a tall white man with dark buzz-cut hair wearing a dark-colored button down shirt. His brother-in-law Douglas Tubinis is to the right of him, and he's wearing a white button down shirt and has short dirty blonde/brown hair. In the bottom row on the far right is James' mother Barbara Catalano, a white woman with a short haircut with blonde highlights, wearing a dark blouse and red lipstick. James' father Joseph Catalano is in the middle of the photo, he is a white man with white, short swooping hair and is wearing a dark-colored polo shirt. On his lap is James' nephew John Tubinis, a baby boy with blonde/brown hair wearing a white and blue sailor shirt. James' sister Annemarie Tubinis sits to the left of Joseph and John, and she is a white woman with dark shoulder length hair, wearing a dark-colored short sleeve blouse, small hoop earrings and red lipstick.
    State
    Disabilities Beat: How NYS' budget could impact living opportunities for people with disabilities
    Emyle Watkins
    New York is less than a week away from the deadline for the 2025 state budget. Every year, people with disabilities, their families, and the agencies that serve them watch this date closely, because the results of the budget vote will determine living opportunities for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. This week on the Disabilities Beat, we highlight one family's decades-long story of fighting for their loved one's opportunity to live in his community, which is now threatened due to a workforce crisis that many advocates attribute to underfunding in the state budget.
  • Two separate pictures are next to each other. Sydney Hanley (left) is a white woman with Down syndrome who is smiling for the camera at a table with paper, pens and her phone. She has red-blonde hair and is wearing blue glasses and a blue shirt. Madisyn Ross (right) is a white woman with Down syndrome sitting at a table. She is smiling and has brown hair, brown eyes and tortoise-shell printed glasses. She is wearing a blue jacket with plaid cuffs that are rolled back.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: On World Down Syndrome Day, let’s stop infantilizing adults
    Emyle Watkins
    March 21st is World Down Syndrome Day. You’ve probably met someone with Down syndrome before or know what Down syndrome is, but how often do you talk to people with Down syndrome? In this week’s episode, Disabilities Beat Reporter Emyle Watkins visits GiGi’s Playhouse in Buffalo, which provides a variety of social activities, classes and resources for people of all ages with Down syndrome. We interview three adults living with Down syndrome who share that the biggest barrier to equity might be the simplest to solve: it’s how we talk to and with people with visible disabilities.
  • Stephanie, a white woman with short brown and grey hair smiles for a photo. She is wearing red glasses, a necklace and white windbreaker. There is a white-grey building in the background.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: A decade-long fight to expand how far paratransit goes in New York State
    Emyle Watkins
    Over the past decade, a local activist has fought for New York State to expand its paratransit system beyond the federal minimum distance it can go. Stephanie Speaker's own experiences with paratransit, the point-to-point public transportation system for people with disabilities, not being able to reach where she needs to go has galvanized her to secure funding and potential legislation that could expand the system. This week, WBFO's Emyle Watkins shares an interview with Speaker from 2023 about her work and why she wants to see paratransit go farther.
  • A figure skater competes at Special Olympics New York's 2024 winter games in Syracuse, NY.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: How the New York State budget could impact sports access for disabled athletes
    Emyle Watkins
    Soon New York State will finalize its 2025 budget, which always impacts programs and services utilized by New Yorkers with disabilities. One of those programs is Special Olympics, an organization that provides a variety of free opportunities for athletes of all ages with disabilities. On this week's Disabilities Beat, we speak with Special Olympics New York CEO, Stacey Hengsterman. She joined us back in December for an exclusive interview to share that they will face cuts if the state doesn't increase their funding, which they claim has remained stagnant at $1.5 million over the past 20 years.
  • Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz stands to the right of a American Sign Language interpreter at a press conference. He is wearing a suit and has short dark hair. He is standing at a podium that has the county seal and the words "County of Erie." The interpreter has long red hair and is wearing sunglasses, a black long sleeve shirt and yellow pants. There is a group of people standing behind them.
    Local
    Disabilities Beat: Can local language access laws conflict with disability law? The short answer is no
    Emyle Watkins
    Jasmine Harris, a law professor and disability rights legal scholar from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, explains in a conversation with WBFO’s Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins how local laws like the recently vetoed Erie County Language Access Act can interact with federal disability laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
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