The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "learning disability" ...
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How the VA Abandons Our Vets
Sgt. Juan Jimenez was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, and in need of immediate care, he sought disability benefits from the VA. He then learned of a bizarre regulation: before he could receive benefits he would have to prove his wounds came from war.
Tags: veteran suicide; Veterans for Common Sense; Veterans Affairs; Purple Heart; armed forces;
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The Forgotten
This story is an inside look at the systematic warehousing of more than 17,000 adults and children in Serbia's mental institutions. Dateline NBC gained unprecedented access to remote, government-run facilities and found alarming and sometimes life-threatening conditions. The institutions are remnants of Serbia's communist past and symbols of a deeply ingrained prejudice against the mentally disabled and their families. Serbia's medical establishment continues to advise parents to put their mentally disabled newborns into institutions, and the government provides virtually no support for those who choose not to. In mental institutions throughout Serbia, Dateline found adults and children crammed into fetid rooms and metal cribs, their bodies emaciated, atrophied and disfigured. Some residents appeared to be children but they were actually young adults whose growth had been stunted by years of institutionalization. One of our most disturbing discoveries came while staying overnight in a dangerously overcrowded institution. There we learned that children are routinely tied to their bed railings for long periods of time - a practice that one disability rights organization says meets the legal definition of torture under international law.
Tags: mental health; Serbia; child abuse; patient abuse; patient rights; mental institutions
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The Mercury Menace
The reporters investigated supermarkets throughout the Chicago area that routinely sell seafood highly contaminated with mercury, a toxic metal that can cause learning disabilities in children and neurological problems in adults. The Tribune commissioned mercury testing of random samples of fish from markets across Chicago.
Tags: mercury; fish; seafood; toxic; food regulations; learning disabilities; FDA
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The Mercury Menace
The authors investigated supermarkets throughout the Chicago area that are routinely selling seafood that is highly contaminated with mercury, a toxic metal that can cause learning disabilities in children and neurological problems in adults. The Tribune commissioned mercury testing of random samples of fish from markets across Chicago.
Tags: mercury; fish; seafood; toxic; food regulations; learning disabilities; FDA
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High School Choice: The impact of student flight on schools of last resort; From excellence to exodus, Harlan strives for rebirth; Why Kids Flee
In a three-part computer-assisted investigation Catalyst reveals that, as "Chicago's public high schools have become a system of choice, ... high schools in high-poverty neighborhood ... are left with predominantly low-achieving kids and a disproportionate share of special education students." In the first part Duffrin analyses school-board data, and concludes that schools left behind have hard time attracting good students and teachers. As a result, their average test scores have been dropping over the years. In the second part the reporter focuses on one school's decline, and on its attempts to recover. The third part "explains why parents and students avoid certain schools."
Tags: enrollment data; teachers; students; parents; behavioral problems; discipline; learning disability; safety; gangs; CAR; Database Mapping Project
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Goodwill Hunting
"Goodwill Industries is a nonprofit agency that collects donated items to be resold with the profits going towards helping the disabled. Memphis, Tennessee, uses drop-off points across the city for people to leave their donations. These drop off points are staffed by a Goodwill employee during the day, but at night the donations are unattended. Our investigation uncovered people stealing these donations late at night, often times in large quantities. . . Once we caught the thieves on tape, we confronted them to find out the reason they would steal from the Goodwill. We shared our findings with Goodwill management, who were appalled to learn how widespread the stealing had become. Finally, we showed how these 'Goodwill Thieves' end up hurting people with disabilities, who benefit from the re-sale of the very goods that are being stolen. We also showed viewers how they could keep their donations from ending up in the wrong hands."
Tags: stealing; donations; re-sale goods; robbery prevention; also includes tape and transcript
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"Special Neglect"
This three-part series chronicles a problematic move by the local school board to "mainstream" physically and learning-disabled students into regular classrooms. Upon examination, the program was found to be crippled by poor planning, leading to parental outrage.
Tags: reform; San Diego Unified School District; Board of Education
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Two lives. One Bullet. No Justice.
The Daily Press reports "Ricky was a 15-year-old learning-disabled boy in the hands of skilled interrogators. His confession, which he immediately recanted, was made under pressure and without his father present. Prosecutors were so certain that only the guilty confess, they ignored eyewitnesses, evidence and a defense attorney with addiction problems that were well-know to the court. Everyone ignored a videotape in which the alleged victim admits he shot himself, then laughs about it. Everyone also ignored the alleged victim's psychiatric and criminal past, which at the time included two suicide attempts and more than 20 criminal charges."
Tags: juvenile justice system; videotape; confession; wrongful imprisonment clemency hearing
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Lost learning
The Balitmore Sun finds that city students often enter special education as illiterates -- and stay that way despite a class-action lawsuit in 1984 that sought better schooling for disabled youngsters. Meanwhile the program's Rolls-Royce price tag leaves the cupboard bear for regular kids.
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Attention Deficits
The article examines the growing size of the learning disability entitlement in the U.S. It deals with Mark Kelman, Stanford law professor and a pioneer of the radical Critical Legal Studies movement, who became interested in the issue after seeing the extra time that some students in law school were receiving on exams. He estimates that the cost of devoting special resources to the learning disabled amounts to roughly $9 billion a year. He concludes that even if identifiable learning disabilities do exist, there's no good reason for these children to claim government resources withheld from their foundering peers.
Tags: ADHD