This study examined the attitudes held by police officers towards persons with mental retardation with regard to the domains of knowledge, social willingness, affect and contact. It also investigated relationships among group membership and perspectives towards mental retardation. An analysis of relationships between the four domains was also completed. A descriptive correlational design was employed to survey police officers, pairing the Social Distance Questionnaire with a researcher-designed instrument consisting of open-ended questions aligned with each domain. The sample included one hundred and eighty police officers from five different bureaus in one county in Central Florida. Results of the study indicate that police officers hold generally positive attitudes towards persons with mental retardation, are knowledgeable about persons with mental retardation, and are socially willing to interact with such persons. In the domains of contact and affect, a discrepancy was found between the open-ended responses and the questionnaire data. The latter showed scores were skewed slightly higher than the neutral point of the scale, but the open-ended responses reflected lower contact and less positive affect. This inconsistency was attributed to instrumentation as the level of contact and affect were measured differently between the two surveys. This study found that group membership by gender and race does in fact play a role in the shaping of police officer perceptions towards mental retardation, with females having more positive affect and Hispanic officers scoring lower in social willingness. Significance was not found for either chronological age or years of experience. The analysis of relationships among the domains showed that each domain has a significant relationship with the other, with the strongest relationship between affect and social willingness. According to the study results, the most significant influence on a police officer's attitudinal score is the officer's social willingness to interact with persons who have that disability. The level of knowledge between the study participants was variable, but the responses and level of social willingness demonstrated more consistency when compared with the overall score. Information gained from this study is useful for developing disability awareness curriculum for public service providers and higher education.

People with disabilities, and in particular people who are blind or vision impaired, are not embracing computing and Internet-related technologies at the same rate as the able-bodied population. The purpose of this study was to find the reasons behind this digital divide for people with disabilities and provide solutions. The investigation into this 'disability divide' initially examined the historical significance of the social construction of disability, the developments of computing and Internet-related technologies and the evolution of associated government and corporate policies. In order to gain an understanding of the specific elements in the current disability divide, interviews were conducted with a range of government representatives, multinational information technology developers and online information providers in Australia and the United States of America. In order to gain an understanding of what people with disabilities required from information technology, a national survey was conducted with people who are blind or vision impaired to determine their computing and Internet experiences. This study clearly identified that people with vision disabilities have a high level of computing and Internet expertise and it is specific barriers, rather than lack of will, that has prevented access to computing and Internet-related technologies. These barriers include issues relating to the perception of disability in society, Federal and state government policy, corporate policy, mainstream computing products, assistive technologies, real-time online communication, poverty and a lack of educational opportunities. Addressing the issues in these areas will significantly reduce the impact of the disability divide, allowing people who are blind or vision impaired to participate more effectively in the information age.

The effects of disability on individuals, their parents and their family as a whole have been extensively researched. However, the specific effects on siblings have not been given adequate attention by mainstream society until recently. Consequently, few services have been available for siblings in our community. Of the research that has explored sibling needs, most have relied on parental reports or used measures developed for alternate populations measuring more general variables such as psychopathology. This research project is concerned with the development of a self-report measure of Perceived Effect of Disability for teenage siblings (12 -17 years) of children with an intellectual disability and the development and pilot of an intervention that aimed to assist the positive adjustment of teenage siblings. The development of the measure involved three stages. First, an extensive item pool was constructed from past literature with 150 potential items identified. To ensure the validity of the item pool for siblings themselves, a sample of 24 teenage siblings rated the importance of the items and subscales. This reduced the number of items. Next, focus groups were run with an alternate sample of 41 teenage siblings for further evidence that all pertinent issues were included and to explore items identified as having low importance in Stage 1. The last stage involved testing the measure’s psychometric properties with a further 80 siblings. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted to determine the measure’s underlying factor structure. Results identified four factors underlying the measure, Positive Influence of Disability, Family Differences, Worry About What Others Think and Lack of Time With Others, all of which exhibited high internal consistency and test-retest reliability over a six-week period. / The final measure included 40 items and included two parts, the impact on family life and the impact on social life for siblings. The issues identified through the development of the Perceived Effect of Disability measure were then used to develop a pilot intervention that aimed to assist the positive adjustment of teenage siblings. The result was a 6-week program, consisting of 90-minute groups covering Sharing My Story, Exploring Differences and Disabilities, Exploring and Communicating Feelings, Coping Skills I, Coping Skills II and Finding Meaning. The impact of the program was piloted with two groups, consisting of 16 teenage siblings (aged 12-17 years). A matched comparison sample was also used to determine if the intervention resulted in improved perceptions of the effect of disability on siblings using the Perceived Effect of Disability (PED) subscales. There was no significant interaction between time and group on any of the PED subscales. A main effect was found for time on the Lack of Time With Others subscale only. The non-significant time x group interaction, however, indicates that the main effect of time on Lack of Time With Others scores applied to both groups. There was no significant change in family functioning or self-esteem from pre to post-test for the intervention group. However, extensive qualitative data provided strong support for the importance of such an intervention for this unique group of individuals in our community.

There is little work done in the area of indigenous disability identity issues and how they are recognised in domestic and international human rights laws. The discourse of disability has always been based on social constructionism and without it, there is no identity. I discuss its relevance to indigenous (Māori) with disabilities and how the multiplicitous nature of the identity of other has a particular impact when indigenous, gender and disability are all identified from marginalised groups. I also explore the impact of westernised thinking around impairment, in particular the models of disabilities on indigenous well-being. The issues of family (whānau), whakawhanaungatanga (family relationships), interdependence (community) and collectivity identities central to indigenous thinking are largely ignored by law and policy, yet central to indigenous identity. This ignorance in policy has led to the disparities that continue to remain for indigenous persons with disabilities, particularly those from within thematic identity groups.

Unmaking the Other? is a qualitative sociological analysis of the discourses of intellectual disability present in contemporary Australian society. It attempts to reveal the ways that people with intellectual disabilities 'are' for Australians. This is important because people with intellectual disabilities have a long history of being seen as 'other' or 'not one of us'. For many years they were kept 'out of sight, and out of mind� on the margins of our communities, locked in institutions or hidden in sheltered workshops. Yet, during the last few decades there has been a concerted effort to bring people with intellectual disabilities back into society. Institutions and sheltered workshops closed, and policies of inclusion, normalisation and community living were vigorously pursued. People with intellectual disabilities are now equal citizens in the eyes of the law. But how readily have we accepted that people with intellectual disability are 'one of us'? Have community living reforms overturned deep cultural dispositions that cast people with intellectual disabilities as 'lesser', 'defective', and lacking personhood? This thesis investigates recent community living reforms, especially the assumption that inclusion and education would radically transform our conceptualisations of people with intellectual disabilities. To do this, it draws on contemporary social and political theory to explore how the meanings of disability are created and maintained, focusing on the Foucauldian concept of discourse. This Foucauldian theorisation of discourse, power and knowledge informs a methodology devised to provide a more detailed and sophisticated analysis of the meanings of intellectual disability than previous investigations. Texts from three key social arenas are analysed for the way in which our society constructs intellectual disability, and these analyses lead to a number of theoretical and practical conclusions. Specifically, the main contributions of this thesis are: the identification and analysis of fourteen distinct discourses of intellectual disability, the theoretical explication of their relations to one another, and theoretical discussion of what their presence reveals about intellectual disability in today�s Australia. The findings of a variety of discursive constructions of intellectual disability suggest a complex picture in which discourses of inclusion and membership have emerged that are consistent with community living reforms, while at the same time there has been a continuation of discourses that view people with intellectual disabilities as defective humans. Drawing on theory and empirical evidence, possibilities are suggested for further political and educational interventions into the discursive construction of people with intellectual disabilities. The problems posed by our attempts at liberation through community living reforms are major; this thesis contributes to this task by revealing the complexity, contradictions, and resistances inherent in this task. What is more, it sees these findings not as causes for dismay, but as reasons for cautious hope.

一個國家對報導殘障者就業的積極程度，可作為評估該國經濟發展程度的指標，因為國家的經濟必須發展至滿足人民需求達一定程度之後，才會轉移能力去兼顧那些屬於弱勢族群的福利。民主福祉國家是我國建國的目標，有效輔導殘障就業，確保其工作權，亦是我國邁向民王福祉國家的施政方向。過去我國照顧殘障者僅限於救濟階段，如今由於社會變遷急遽，社會福利發展影像也最大，工業與都下化導致傳統血緣關係式微，家族組織鬆散，以倫常維持社會秩序的功能降低，政府的職責亦隨之繁重，扮演的角色任務也更加積極。因此，對於現今社會協助殘障者的觀念應由政府率先做起身先士卒，由消極的救濟走向積極的像辟，協助殘障者受教育，接受訓煉，怒而提供就業機會，我其自立，提昇其人性尊展，間接減輕社會負搪，並增進國家利益。在積極推動進用殘障者之際，陸續將面茲的問越是殘障人員的管理，管理向來在組織申佔有重要的地位，許多的理論均指出良好的管理有助於提昇組織績效，對一般員工如此，對殘障者也不例外。欲使對殘障者的管理有任何重大意義時，管理者必須有相當認知。因此本文除對我國殘障者就業之現況予以探討並介紹世界先進國家實施狀況外，針對進用殘障人員之管理更做一深層探討，提供不同角度的意見，以期使我國殘障就業制度益趨完善。

<p>The aim in the study is to search for a deeper understanding of how parents experience a neurological diagnose of the child and how this affects the parenthood. Parenthood was seen in a systemtheoretical perspective as a social construction. The narrative method was used in two lifestory parentinterviews. The analysis was made from parenthood. The result formed stories about parenthood with children having neuropsyciatric functional disability who even came to be a woman’s struggle. Two stories became central, one about righteousness and commonship and one against diagnosis and network. The struggle for support and understanding from the surrounding network was central. There was also a fight between the network and the parent of the authority to decide the child’s normality. The parent and child early experience a segregation in society based on diagnose. Parents experienced insecurity and difficulties regarding dose and sideeffects in medication the child. The networks reception was central for the acceptance of diagnosis and for keeping the parentcompetence. The public debate of inherent or environment created doubt and insecurity. In the stories there was a tendency that the struggle went beside the child and parenthood and instead became a struggle for righteousness against society.</p>

<p>Avsikten med denna studie var att belysa hur funktionshindrade barn uppfattas av andra barn. Jag intervjuade tio barn i år 4, från två olika skolor. I den ena skolan går flera funktionshindrade elever. Jag valde att samtala med barnen utifrån 6 bilder föreställande andra barn - 4 med olika funktionshinder och 2 utan synbara funktionshinder. </p><p>De slutsatser jag tycker mig kan dra utifrån det material jag har, var att alla tio respondenter hade en relativt enhetlig uppfattning om hur funktionshindrade barn tänker och känner. Skillnaden mellan skolorna var att de barn som var vana att se funktionshindrade i större utsträckning kunde identifiera olika typer av funktionshinder, och att de då i någon mån hade en klarare uppfattning om hur de tycker att funktionshindrade bör behandlas. Alla barnen jag talade med uttryckte sympati för de funktionshindrade barnen. Genomgående var också uppfattningen att funktionshindrade är det synd om, och de bör därför behandlas med extra hänsyn och respekt. Ju mer avvikande de funktionshindrade ser ut, ju mer särskilda från respondenterna upplevs de av dessa. De upplevs tänka på och tycka om att göra andra saker. Exempelvis tros funktionshindrade haft anledning att fundera över existentiella frågor i högre utsträckning, och är således inte lika materialistiska som andra barn. Barn utan synbara funktionshinder upplevs tycka om populär musik och"såpor"i tv - sådant som av respondenterna upplevs som"normalt". Detta var gemensamt för båda grupperna av barn, liksom att de gav uttryck för uppfattningen att ett avvikande yttre också innebär ett avvikande inre.</p>

We describe here, briefly, a perceptual non-reading measure which reliably distinguishes between dyslexic persons and ordinary readers. More importantly, we describe a regimen of practice with which dyslexics learn a new perceptual strategy for reading. Two controlled experiment on dyslexics children demonstrate the regimen's efficiency.

This dissertation was a discourse analysis study, drawing upon discursive psychology, poststructural understandings of discourse, conversation analysis, and a social relational model of disability. The purpose of this study was to explore how autism was performed as an interactional event among children with autism labels, the therapists who work with them, and their parents, in the context of a pediatric therapy setting. I interrogated how the participants’ everyday discursive practices were shaped and, at times, constrained by the social and political institutions that often work to define autism and the related, official plans of treatment. A total of 12 families agreed to participate, resulting in the participation of 12 children with autism labels, three to 11 years of age, six fathers, and 11 mothers. The participants included three speech therapists, two occupational therapists, one physical therapist, one teacher/social group facilitator, and one medical secretary/sibling support group facilitator. Data sources included conversational data from the therapy sessions of the participating children and their therapists, 14 parent interviews, eight therapist interviews, documents used within the therapy sessions, demographic surveys/information from the participating therapists and parents, and two interviews with a state advocate and clinical directors focused on qualifying for services. Findings from the interview data highlighted the varied meanings and performances of autism, while pointing to the related political and social conditions that make the naming and treating of autism (im)possible. Findings drawn from the therapy session data pointed to how the participants’ discursive practices worked to reframe “behaviors of concern,” and to transgress normative communication patterns. The following conclusions were drawn from the findings: (a) autism, as a construct, remains open to multiple meanings, while being inextricably linked to institutionalized practices; (b) in therapy talk, therapists and children with autism labels often co-construct alternative accounts of problematic behaviors; and (c) therapy talk can function to reframe non-normative communication and behavioral patterns, expanding what is constructed as “acceptable.” The findings point to the complexities of defining and performing autism labels, and highlight the ways in which therapy talk can function to reframe behaviors and communication patterns presumed to be pathological.