Understanding invisible disabilities has become a more consistent conversation in recent years. While this conversation has included developing better medical treatment and legislative progress for accessibility requirements, there remains progress to be made in comprehending how these invisible disabilities impact a person's daily life. This dissertation research focuses on how informal learning tools such as interactive narratives could be developed to provide insight into the ways an invisible disability influences a person's day that otherwise goes unnoticed by the mainstream population. To provide this insight, an advanced prototype of an interactive story titled Under the Rock was developed and based upon the researcher's experiences growing up and living with advanced hearing loss. The narrative used for Under the Rock was drafted using an autoethnography methodology to capture key moments from the researcher's memories and translate them into a game narrative. Following a choose-your-own-adventure story format, users are asked to guide the main character through a series of situations that are directly influenced by her hearing loss and learn about the impact of each choice. To test the efficacy of Under the Rock, a survey study was conducted to determine what users most commonly took away from the game experience. This survey study found that a majority of users began with an expected baseline of minimal knowledge about hearing loss, and after completing the study many reported a deeper understanding of hearing loss within the context of everyday life. While there is a great deal of work to build upon within this research, this advanced prototype of Under the Rock and accompanying survey study show promising initial results in developing effective informal learning resources for educating mainstream populations about invisible disabilities and their impact on daily life.

Children with congenital hand differences (CHD) are at risk for social isolation, increased anxiety, and lower rates of self-esteem when compared to their typically developing peers (Lumsdaine et al, 2016). Parents may feel guilt, isolation, and may have perceived lack of resources to best support their children (Ardon, Janssen, Hovius, Stam, & Selles, 2012; Murray, Kelley-Soderholm, & Murray, 2007). Goffman (1963) explained that society perceives that individuals with differences belong to the “other” category deprived of social privileges which are standard to those in the “in-group”. Many children with congenital hand differences and their parents have limited access to the resources to manage and cope effectively with the negative assumptions about their ability.. This doctoral capstone project describes the development of an online resource for parents of children with congenital hand differences. The content for the webpage is based on literature, clinical and personal experiences. The online resource was designed to increase feelings of support, community, and effective coping for parents of children with CHD. Fourteen parents were recruited via social media platforms to review and evaluate the website. Responded evaluated the ease in website navigation, the usefulness of content, and rated their likelihood to use and to recommend the website. Parents on average found the website easy to navigate, useful, and were likely to use, and recommend the website.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disease whose prevalence has increased over time. Individuals with ASD have many health-related issues besides their primary symptoms that should be addressed by professionals, including having a higher rate of comorbid diseases. Also, their intellectual and social challenges present an additional set of problems that healthcare providers should aim to resolve. However, there seems to be a gap in healthcare knowledge and access between professionals and patients with ASD, respectively. The goal of this review is to examine the literature to see how the healthcare system is improving so that they can better accommodate the needs of people with special needs, specifically ASD. After review, the consensus is that there needs to be more training so that providers are more confident and knowledgeable in supporting these individuals with ASD through their lives. The overall intention is to bridge this gap that exists between the healthcare system and the patients with ASD who are trying to access it.

Religion and spirituality are central to the way many people, including persons with disabilities, make sense of both the world itself, and their place in that world. However, in most scholarship focusing on disability, religion, as a way of understanding and dealing with disability, is side-lined or absent (Imhoff, 2017). Islam has a long rich history in South Africa and is currently one of the major religions here (Mahida, 2012). Followers of Islam are commonly referred to as members of the Muslim Ummah as a collective, an Ummah that includes persons with disabilities and non-disabled persons. Given the paucity of research focusing on disability in the Muslim Ummah in South Africa, this study sets out to gain insight into the way disability inclusion is enacted within the Muslim Ummah in South Africa. The research question asks: How is disability inclusion interpreted, experienced and enacted by people within the Muslim Ummah in South Africa? Adopting an interpretative qualitative research approach and applying an intrinsic case study method, the research was conducted with members of the Ummah in three major cities in South Africa, viz. Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. Data was generated from persons with disabilities, family members of persons with disabilities, the Ulema and a non-disabled person from the Ummah from each city. In-depth face-to-face interviews and a review of three Muslim publications were used as data gathering mechanisms. Interviews were held with seven persons with disabilities, either a physical or sensory disability, five family members of participants with disabilities, six Ulema and three non-disabled persons. All participants were aged 18 and older. Data was analysed by looking for themes that emerged from the data. Three themes, “Seen as Inferior'', “Carrying the Weight for Inclusion” and “We Are Not Doing Enough”, each with two sub-themes, emerged from the analysis. “Seen as Inferior'' and its two sub- themes, ‘' Gaze of Othering and ‘'The Deep Impact of Disability'', highlight the way in which persons with disabilities are viewed as inferior within the Ummah and how this is reflected in the gaze of non-disabled persons on persons with disabilities and their families, and the impact of this gaze. ‘'Carrying the Weight For Inclusion” emphasises the responsibility that persons with disabilities have assumed in order to be accepted into and included in the Ummah and this is demonstrated through the two sub-themes, “The Unspoken Responsibility of Negotiating Persons with Disabilities” and ‘'Negotiating the Effort to be at the Masjid”. “We Are Not Doing Enough” explains that although some aspects of inclusion are evident within the Muslim Ummah, the pace of change is very slow and inclusion remains inadequate. Sub-themes ‘'Inclusion could Create Ease and Belonging” and “Still a Journey to Travel to be Included” capture the way disability inclusion is interpreted and experienced by the participants of the study, highlighting that much work is still needed to attain full inclusion and to create ease and belonging for persons with disabilities within the Ummah. The discussion explains how the dominant discourse around disability is one that reflects an ableist, normative, colonial narrative. This narrative influences how disability inclusion is enacted within the Ummah, belabouring a move to full inclusion. The phenomenon of an unconscious exclusion of persons with disabilities within the Ummah is discussed as it emerges from this dominant discourse, together with the silence that sustains the continuation of the exclusion. The ways in which this unconscious exclusion plays out in many spaces and places significant to the lives of persons with disabilities are identified. It is proposed that, in order to achieve full inclusion and belonging for persons with disabilities within the Ummah, there needs to be a re-shaping in the thinking around disability through generating new knowledge and by challenging the dominance of the normative, ableist narrative. Informed by a decolonial turn, pathways towards full inclusion and belonging of persons with disabilities within the Ummah are proposed. It is suggested that collective action by both persons with disabilities and non-disabled persons within the Ummah is needed for full inclusion and belonging to transpire. The pathway to full inclusion and belonging would enable systemic change around disability within the Ummah to ensue and it would help move the de-colonisation project forward.

This thesis examines issues surrounding access to records relating to people labelled with intellectual disability who have been institutionalized in Manitoba. It argues that the devaluation of people labelled with intellectual disabilities, together with the failures and difficulties in acquiring, preserving, describing and accessing records that describe the historical experiences of people labelled with intellectual disability who have been institutionalized, allows society to continue to seem like it does not know “the wrong they are doing with institutions.” In conclusion, this thesis advocates for means by which the experiences of people who have been institutionalized could be created, archived and more broadly available to the public. / February 2017

This thesis explores differences in the ways that intellectually disabled people are perceived, interpreted and related to within a Western context. Through a comparison of familial and institutionalised forms of relatedness, it examines the interrelation between these differences and the consequences that they have for either denying or acknowledging severely intellectually disabled people's capacities for sociality. Drawing on Carrithers' (1992) concept of sociality and mutuality, and Wittgenstein's (1953) notion of language games, the thesis analyses the means by which a meaningful and shared existence with intellectually disabled people can be negotiated and developed. Although limited and restricted in their capacities for symbolic expression, such people do have modalities of symbolic life upon which sociality can be built. By analysing the symbolic practices utilised by my three profoundly intellectually disabled siblings, I seek to show how relationships across the difference of intellectual disability are able to be symbolically mediated and negotiated. I argue that it is necessary to engage in relations of mutual interdependence in order to even recognise and perceive these practices as purposeful and meaningful. The mutuality that ensues requires a level of intimacy, empathy and commitment that is not easily sustainable, but which is necessary for the maintenance of intellectually disabled people's existence as social beings. These intimate relations are contrasted with clinical and institutional forms of relatedness, both of which have been informed and shaped by a symbolic scheme of reason and normality. This symbolic scheme associates a capacity for reason with normal humanness, where reason is identified as particular abstract, linguistic, mental practices that are then deemed necessary for sociality. These are what intelligence tests measure, and it is through such assessments that intellectually disabled people are rendered asocial. The pathologising of intellectual disability as an abnormal embodiment, and the clinical tendency to search only for deficits in functioning and ability, has led to a denial or ignorance of intellectually disabled people's abilities to be the independent sustainers and authors of mutuality and sociality. I draw on my family's medical notes, records from the institution where two of my siblings were sent to live, as well as observations made during twelve months of fieldwork with a group of intellectually disabled people attending an activities centre, and either living in community group homes or with their families, to elucidate the ways in which such interpretations of intellectual disability become instituted into daily practice. The instituting of training and management practices within day centres, group homes and institutions for the intellectually disabled are a consequence of the perception that intellectually disabled people have no capacity for sociality as they are. So too are the legal and structural obligations that inform the forms of relatedness that staff have with the intellectually disabled people with whom they work. These relations are based on separation and disengagement rather than mutuality and intimacy. The aim in these institutionalised environments is to instil in such people a range of normative social, domestic and vocational skills as though it is upon these that their capacity as social beings are dependent. As a result, the symbolic practices and dispositional behaviours through which intellectually disabled people express themselves are not recognised as such, nor are they engaged with. This undermines intellectually disabled people's capacity to be joint contributors to social life in a way which incorporates their differences rather than trying to transform them.

This thesis explores differences in the ways that intellectually disabled people are perceived, interpreted and related to within a Western context. Through a comparison of familial and institutionalised forms of relatedness, it examines the interrelation between these differences and the consequences that they have for either denying or acknowledging severely intellectually disabled people's capacities for sociality. Drawing on Carrithers' (1992) concept of sociality and mutuality, and Wittgenstein's (1953) notion of language games, the thesis analyses the means by which a meaningful and shared existence with intellectually disabled people can be negotiated and developed. Although limited and restricted in their capacities for symbolic expression, such people do have modalities of symbolic life upon which sociality can be built. By analysing the symbolic practices utilised by my three profoundly intellectually disabled siblings, I seek to show how relationships across the difference of intellectual disability are able to be symbolically mediated and negotiated. I argue that it is necessary to engage in relations of mutual interdependence in order to even recognise and perceive these practices as purposeful and meaningful. The mutuality that ensues requires a level of intimacy, empathy and commitment that is not easily sustainable, but which is necessary for the maintenance of intellectually disabled people's existence as social beings. These intimate relations are contrasted with clinical and institutional forms of relatedness, both of which have been informed and shaped by a symbolic scheme of reason and normality. This symbolic scheme associates a capacity for reason with normal humanness, where reason is identified as particular abstract, linguistic, mental practices that are then deemed necessary for sociality. These are what intelligence tests measure, and it is through such assessments that intellectually disabled people are rendered asocial. The pathologising of intellectual disability as an abnormal embodiment, and the clinical tendency to search only for deficits in functioning and ability, has led to a denial or ignorance of intellectually disabled people's abilities to be the independent sustainers and authors of mutuality and sociality. I draw on my family's medical notes, records from the institution where two of my siblings were sent to live, as well as observations made during twelve months of fieldwork with a group of intellectually disabled people attending an activities centre, and either living in community group homes or with their families, to elucidate the ways in which such interpretations of intellectual disability become instituted into daily practice. The instituting of training and management practices within day centres, group homes and institutions for the intellectually disabled are a consequence of the perception that intellectually disabled people have no capacity for sociality as they are. So too are the legal and structural obligations that inform the forms of relatedness that staff have with the intellectually disabled people with whom they work. These relations are based on separation and disengagement rather than mutuality and intimacy. The aim in these institutionalised environments is to instil in such people a range of normative social, domestic and vocational skills as though it is upon these that their capacity as social beings are dependent. As a result, the symbolic practices and dispositional behaviours through which intellectually disabled people express themselves are not recognised as such, nor are they engaged with. This undermines intellectually disabled people's capacity to be joint contributors to social life in a way which incorporates their differences rather than trying to transform them.

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In a culture that values independence and productivity, non-normative bodies are understood as broken and useless. Disability is framed in medical terms, as a problem that should be resolved with prevention or cure. In response to this ableist perception of disability, the disability community has long argued that disability is not a medical issue but a social one, and its focus has been on increasing physical access and ending discrimination. Though the disability rights movement has made gains for some disabled people with this approach, they have excluded many others, including the chronically ill, who are disabled both by society and by their bodies themselves. Thus, chronically ill young adults in America face social exclusion and isolation, living in a culture where neither the mainstream nor the primary counter-narratives surrounding disability encompass their experiences. This thesis uses interviews conducted with chronically ill young adults to explore these issues, touching on disability identity, success narratives, and the Tumblr chronic illness community, ultimately arguing that the disability community needs to base its understanding of disability on a relational/political model that is politicized and inclusive.

Statistics show that approximately 30.6 million individuals in the United States had an ambulatory disability (AD), the most prevalent disability in the country. In 2010, 17.5% of the disabled population was employed, and only 5% of that employed population had an AD. The purpose of this multiple case study was to understand the decision-making process of small businesses owners in New Jersey when deciding on whether to hire those with AD. Ajzen's theory of planned behavior was utilized in this study to make predictions and explain why individuals engage in a behavior. Interviews were conducted with 16 participants and 22 questionnaires were completed by non-interview participants. The criteria of interview participants included ownership of small businesses within New Jersey and experience with hiring or interviewing an individual with an AD. Questionnaires were given to those businesses that exceeded employee size and lacked experience with AD. participation. Interview transcripts and questionnaires served as the raw data for analysis. Analysis of data consisted of coding using Nvivo software; to assist with identifying patterns and themes. Findings showed employers are willing to hire individuals with AD if they are able to perform the job duties. The results of this study can benefit businesses and individuals with AD seeking employment. Providing a knowledge base for those in the hiring position and those in the candidacy position serves to inform those about what candidates with AD can contribute as an employee and what employers are looking for in an employee. Such benefits may increase the employment opportunity for individuals with AD.