In a move described by the government as the biggest reform in Special Educational Needs for 30 years, this week it was announced that parents in England are to be given financial control over their children's SEN budgets. This will allow them to seek out a more personalised package of support for their child, rather than local authorities being the sole provider. However, fears have been expressed by some teaching unions that the draft legislation, which also contains proposals to merge categories of special needs, could see many children completely removed from the special education register.

More of the week's headlines

Aberdeen dementia patient 'had 106 carers' in a year (BBC News, Friday 18 May)

Limbless Frenchman Philippe Croizon hits swim landmark (BBC News, Thursday 17 May)

David Blunkett urges VAT tax break for guide dog food (BBC News, Thursday 17 May)

Activist Chen Guangcheng says passport application done (BBC News, Thursday 17 May)

Equality laws to be 'simplified' to ease obligations on business (BBC News, Wednesday 16 May)

Paralysed patients use thoughts to control robotic arm (BBC News, Wednesday 16 May)

Cuts putting lives of learning disabled at risk, say nurses (The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May)

Louis the dog sounds panic alarm for disabled Wrexham owner after accident (BBC News, Wednesday 16 May)

MSPs support Scottish welfare changes (BBC News, Wednesday 16 May)

Care home criticised after mentally ill resident is jailed for killing schoolboy (The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May)

Disabled home care costs up 10 per cent (The Independent, Wednesday 16 May)

Paralympian Hannah Cockroft: How did I celebrate making history? By going to bed (The Guardian, Wednesday 16 May)

Mother takes $1M settlement from city in beating death of her mentally-disabled homeless son (Daily Mail, Wednesday 16 May)

Equality and Human Rights Commission has workforce halved (The Guardian, Tuesday 15 May)

Fury as blind people hit by benefit reform (The Independent, Tuesday 15 May)

Special needs education reform offers both hope and anxiety for parents (The Guardian, Tuesday 15 May)

The special needs system is open to abuse (The Guardian, Tuesday 15 May)

London 2012: Paralympic torchbearers announced (BBC News, Tuesday 15 May)

Brain surgery boost for children with severe epilepsy (BBC News, Tuesday 15 May)

Families win housing benefit ruling over disabled needs (The Independent, Tuesday 15 May)

Nerve rewiring helps paralysed man move hand (BBC News, Tuesday 15 May)

BBC uncovers abuse at care homes for mentally disabled children in Jordan (BBC News, Tuesday 15 May)

Thousands to be struck off special needs list (The Telegraph, Tuesday 15 May)

Former one-armed golf champion encourages inclusion in the sport (BBC News, Tuesday 15 May)

Paramedic wins £1m compensation after NHS removed wrong part of brain (The Telegraph, Tuesday 15 May)

Wounded soldiers to lose 'vital' benefits (The Telegraph, Tuesday 15 May)

Light-powered bionic eye invented to help restore sight (BBC News, Monday 14 May)

Treasury failed to test fairness of spending cuts, equality watchdog finds (The Guardian, Monday 14 May)

Disability benefit change needed, says Iain Duncan Smith (BBC News, Monday 14 May)

Diabetes care in 'state of crisis' (The Guardian, Monday 14 May)

Disability benefits to be slashed (The Guardian, Monday 14 May)

Police need training to section vulnerable people (The Guardian, Monday 14 May)

Autistic adults bullied and not supported at work, poll shows (The Independent, Monday 14 May)

What is having ECT like? (The Observer, Sunday 13 May)

The boy, 11, who battled cancer twice in one year (BBC News, Sunday 13 May)

Disabled Briton held without trial in Spain for 17 months (The Independent, Saturday 12 May)

London 2012 Paralympics: fast-track programme effective as Paralympics GB wheelchair fencing team named (The Telegraph, Friday 11 May)

Radio 1 DJ Nihal, who presents Let Me Into the Music on BBC Radio 1

For disabled fans of live music, access to venues and festivals can be a lottery. But is it really too much to ask to see your favourite band without it turning into an obstacle course or military operation?

In Let Me Into the Music, part of BBC Radio 1's Stories series, DJ Nihal takes listeners on tour, backstage and into the mosh pit with gig-goers and artists across the disability spectrum, finding out what equal access means to them and why it should matter to everyone. Along the way he checks out a legendary rock venue out of hours, tours a tiny pub venue with Blaine from the Mystery Jets, meets young disabled performers doing it for themselves, feels the vibrations from a deaf rave DJ set, and finds out just what it takes to put on a totally accessible gig. Young disabled people talk about their experiences as music fans, and reveal that while disabled access has come a long way since the campaigning charity Attitude is Everything formed in 2000, there's still a long way to go. (Programme available until Monday 21 May, 10.02pm)

Also on iPlayer

The Disabled Century (BBC Four)
The second episode of this series chronicling events of the 20th century from the perspective of disabled people, originally shown in 1999, looks at whether the creation of the welfare state made life better for Britain's disabled community, and at the rights that disabled groups, including blind people and those affected by thalidomide, began to demand. (Available until Thursday 17 May, 12.24am)

The Trouble with Moody Teens (BBC Radio 4)
In every school class, at least one teenager will need urgent treatment for clinical depression. With thousands of under-16s on anti-depressants, there is concern that mental health problems amongst youngsters are on the rise. So what is the difference between typical teen behaviour and something more serious? Presenter Miranda Sawyer hears from young people who speak frankly about their thoughts and feelings, often hidden from those around them. (Available until Friday 18 May, 11.32am)

Desert Island Discs: Baroness Hollins (BBC Radio 4)
Kirsty Young's castaway is Baroness Sheila Hollins, an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry who has specialised in the health and welfare of people with learning disabilities; advising on policy and influencing attitudes. One of her four children has a learning disability and that has brought a particular focus to her professional ambitions.

Woman's Hour (BBC Radio 4)
Next Monday, the National Autistic Society publishes The Way We Are: Autism in 2012 - the charity's largest ever autism survey. Woman's Hour has early access to the findings relating to the particular challenges women can face in getting their needs identified, particularly those who have Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism.

All in the Mind (BBC Radio 4)
Looking at taking mental health care into the community via 'Street Therapy', as well as a discussion on why and how the 200-year-old laws on the verdict of 'Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity' needs to be updated and modernised.

In Touch (BBC Radio 4)
Professor Andrew Lotery discusses the trials comparing the drugs Avastin and Lucentis as a treatment for Age-Related Macular Degeneration, and why he feels there is now enough information for guidance to be issued to clinicians. Plus Tony Shearman reports from the Olympic Stadium on the Paralympic test event, which allowed athletes to see and try out facilities for the first time.

See Hear (BBC Two)
The programme goes down on the farm with an assistant herdsman to find out what life is like for a deaf dairy farmer and his 120 cows. Plus, the series looking at influential deaf people from the past continues with a profile of Scottish artist Walter Geikie.

Outlook (BBC World Service)
Extraordinary personal stories from around the world, including blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng telling the story of his dramatic escape from house arrest.

Radio Wales Arts Show (BBC Radio Wales)
Nicola Heywood Thomas chats to Cheryl Martin, director of 'Birds', the latest production from Disability Arts Cymru's Unusual Stage School. (Available until Friday 18 May, 6.02am)

Something Special (CBeebies)
Educational series for four- to seven-year-old children with learning difficulties.

Coming up

The Disabled Century (BBC Four. Wednesday 23 May, 11.30pm)
The 1999 series chronicling events of the 20th century from the perspective of disabled people reaches its final episode, and looks at the problems disabled people faced as they moved out of institutions and into the community. The 1980s and 90s proved to be a turning point, as more people were prepared to fight for wider recognition and rights.

Jenny Sealey, MBE, was born and raised in Nottingham. On becoming deaf aged seven, a teacher encouraged her to continue ballet lessons though she could no longer hear the dance instruction; she said Jenny should follow the person in front of her. She did, and it set the course of her career.

Having studied dance and choreography at university, Jenny then became a founder member of both the Common Ground Sign Dance Company and the now defunct London Disability Arts Forum.

Jenny has been Artistic Director at Graeae, the well-known UK disability-led theatre company, since 2007. As well as many in-house productions, her credits there include collaborations like Diary of an Action Man with Unicorn children's theatre and the Ian Dury musical Reasons to be Cheerful with the New Wolsey, Ipswich, to name but two.

Jenny is Co-artistic Director of the London 2012 Paralympic opening ceremony. Although she can barely contain her excitement, she isn't allowed to talk about the upcoming spectacular ... but she has no contractual difficulties when it comes to answering our 13 probing questions ...

My earliest memory is ...
Going deaf at aged seven. I remember that day vividly, right down to the layout of my classroom. My best friend and I were pushing each other and laughing behind some bookshelves when he shoved me a little too hard, so that I fell and whacked my head off the corner of the table. When I got home I told my mum I couldn't hear.

The three words I'd use to describe myself are ...
Big breasted Bertha. I have enormous breasts. That's how people remember me and my sign name is linked to the fact I have huge knockers. Put one hand on each nipple and turn the palms slightly outwards, then move your hands away slowly like you are carrying something big and bouncy.

A little known fact about me is ...
That I'm a terrible cook. I like my food quite burnt but that's not to everyone's taste, so I'm not really allowed to cook very often.

Given half a chance I'd relish the opportunity to bore you about ...
Casting. I can go on and on and on about the unimaginative casting systems that are out there. So many casting directors will only cast to type. I work with a beautiful actress called Nadia Albina, who has been told from very, very high profile theatre companies in this country that because she has only one arm, she will not get a job on the main stage. It makes me feel quite sick.

I can't resist ...
A nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I am a massively sociable person. I love nothing better than to sit and chat with a good bottle of wine and close friends.

I want to ban ...
Discrimination against disabled people. The number of physical and attitudinal barriers that so many of us are faced with is just shocking. The visibility of disabled people in the arts and in sport is going to be so massive this year that it has to have an impact. Graeae is doing a huge project with Greenwich and Docklands Festival called Prometheus Awakes. There will be seven and a half thousand Paralympic athletes competing in London and we will have as many deaf and disabled people in the field of play at the opening ceremony. We're out there in a way that we've never been before, and we ain't going away.

The thing I've done but would never do again is ...
Understudy for dancer David Toole. During my production of The Fall of the House of Usher, he got ill and was rushed to hospital. It was in the days where the show must go on. The production was so tightly choreographed to link with all the pre-filmed sign language that it would have been so difficult to teach somebody else; the only person who knew it as well as the cast was me. When the other actors realised what was going to happen they said "But Jenny, you are a woman! And you've got legs!!"

My greatest achievement so far has been ...
Having a baby. Jonah will be 18 next month. At the moment he is doing A Levels and I'm playing bad cop to make him revise. Jonah wants to be a film maker and has started writing a sitcom about our local kebab shop. The show will be called Kebabalon.

If I suddenly became able-bodied I would ...
Lose my job. I have this recurring nightmare that I'm on my own in the office, having a full-blown chat with someone on the phone. I'm so engrossed in my conversation that I don't notice my colleagues come in. Then I turn around and they say, "Jenny, you can hear!" The next image in my dream is of me packing my desk away. I love my job. I don't want to work anywhere else.

Someone should invent ...
Floo powder, like in Harry Potter. At the moment, the preparation schedule for the Paralympic opening ceremony is frankly quite barking. In any one day I need to be at the stadium and at rehearsal spaces in Tower Hamlets and Dagenham. So I need a situation where you just thro the floo powder into the fire, then throw yourself in and it transports you immediately.

My ideal dinner guest would be ...
John Thaw. I know he's dead and gone but I love him. Inspector Morse is my favourite TV show ever. Also, I know he had a real fondness for the grape.

Disability theatre is ...
About creating good plays for diverse audiences. Whether deaf, disabled or not, an audience will learn from what they see. For non-disabled people, seeing a show by Graeae or other disabled artists brings another layer of learning. They might have arrived with some preconceptions and presumptions, but if the work's good it stays with them and they start to unpick their prejudices.

On the world stage, disabled performers need to be ...
The best of the best, otherwise people will mock us: "Ahh bless them, they were lovely, but they were disabled." Why should we not expect high standards from ourselves? If we don't, it becomes patronising and tokenistic, and that is so not what we are about.

• Graeae's latest production, Prometheus Awakes, will be performed as part of the London 2012 festival. The Paralympic opening ceremony will be broadcast live on Channel 4 in the UK, with commentary from Jon Snow and Krishnan Guru-Murthy.