American With Disabilities Act
That same year Bonnie received a call from the United States Justice Department asking for her help in developing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations regarding assistance dogs. Testifying before a congressional committee and providing information about service dogs to the Justice Department inadvertently resulted in Bonnie’s terms, “service dog,” not the umbrella term for all assistance animals and “signal” dog representing the generally accepted “hearing” dog terminology. To this day Bonnie and the industry use the term “service” to represent dogs helping people with mobility limitations and “assistance” as the umbrella term for dogs helping people with disabilities. Terminology aside, the ADA assistance dog regulations have put a mark on the future of assistance dogs helping people with disabilities for years to come. When passed by Congress in 1990, Bonnie was invited to the Rose Garden to witness President George H.W. Bush’s signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Read more about this topic: Bonnie Bergin
Famous quotes containing the word disabilities:
“The more I read and the more I talked to other parents of children with disabilities and normal children, the more I found that feelings and emotions about children are very much the same in all families. The accident of illness or disability serves only to intensify feelings and emotions, not to change them.”
—Judith Weatherly (20th century)