No description available.

Prior research examining persons with intellectual disabilities who have committed criminal offenses has focused primarily on correctional populations, or those who reside in secure forensic settings in the United Kingdom and Australia. This study describes 235 persons with intellectual, developmental, and cognitive disabilities who reside in a secure forensic psychiatric hospital in the Midwestern United States. Participants were further divided into groups of persons with pervasive developmental disorders (n = 35), fetal alcohol syndrome (n = 18), traumatic brain injuries (n = 52), or IQ scores falling within the range of moderate (n = 20) or mild (n = 55) mental retardation or borderline intellectual functioning (n = 55). These participants presented with significant histories of childhood maltreatment and adversity, serious psychiatric impairment, criminal histories marked by multiple arrests and serious violent behavior, and frequent histories of institutionalization and out-of-home placement. Their adaptive functioning within the community was characterized by limited histories of normative intimate relationships; sporadic, unskilled employment; and difficulties with maintaining residential and psychiatric stability. Important commonalities and future research needs are discussed. Important differences and similarities between groups are discussed and compared with other available literature.

The aging of our society is well known, with policy makers and analysts forecasting enormous increases in people living with chronic illness and disabilities (AoA, 2009). Less well known is that services for older adults and younger people with disabilities - historically separated by different funding streams, service systems, and workforces - have increasingly merged (Putnam, 2007). The movement to combine services for older adults and younger persons with disabilities is reflected in the creation of a hybrid organization - Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) - designed to combine services for both populations (O'Shaughnessy, 2011; Putnam, 2011). Using ADRCs as the principal organizational strategy to combine aging and disability services has been challenging, primarily because these organizations have different histories and service philosophies (Kane, 2007; Putnam & Stoever, 2007; DeJong, 1979). Independent living centers, who serve people of all ages with disabilities, have a service philosophy that emphasizes `consumer direction', characterized by consumer control, advocacy, and peer models. While the aging service delivery philosophy is based in a medical model of care where care plans are developed by medical providers and services are provided by professionals in order to protect the well-being of older adults (DeJong, 1986; Simon-Rusinowitz & Hofland, 1993). The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the experiences of ADRCs to combine aging and disability services. The study employs institutional logics theory and a mixed-methods design to assess whether a unified organizational philosophy for these services can be identified. In this dissertation, I found that there were competing logics between directors located at aging organizations when compared to directors at Independent Living Centers. These competing logics were also present among their staff in these organizations. As a mechanism to manage the co-existing logics, I found that the joint activity of collaborating in creating a training program to describe overarching service philosophies helped to unify the two organizations. Additionally, I found that the workers located at aging organizations who took the training had increases in their understanding of the professional logic of consumer control, which is dominant in the disability organizations; therefore, this training helped in managing the co-existence of logics.

The accessibility, predictors, and use of health care and social services among developmentally disabled elderly adults in Canada were examined using a nationally representative social survey. The first research hypothesis is that the independent variables will contribute significantly to the prediction of the dependent variables. A second hypothesis is that the slope of any given independent variable will not equal zero. The results of this research show that the illness (need) variables are the most predictive correlate of the utilization of health care and social services. The predisposing variables have secondary explanatory power, with the enabling variables accounting for the least amount of variance. The hypotheses were tested by step-wise multiple regression analysis using SPSS-X.

The purpose of this study was to determine ETSU faculty attitudes and student perceptions in providing academic accommodations to students with disabilities. Participants of the study were ETSU students with disabilities who are registered with the Disabilities Services office and faculty members of ETSU. Students with disabilities were interviewed. An online survey was sent to faculty members via the ETSU email system. Disability law and disability compliance year books served as the primary documents that were reviewed for pertinent information. Grounded theory using a constant-comparison methodology served as the conceptual framework for the study. The grounded-theory approach allowed for the perspectives of students and faculty to be shared and analyzed. Constant-comparison methodology was used to interpret the data through the critical lens perspectives and experiences of students with disabilities. Interview, online survey, and document review were 3 methods of data collection used in this study. The findings of the study indicated that the experiences and perspectives of ETSU students with disabilities differ regardless of visible or invisible disability. Findings also indicated that faculty attitudes towards providing accommodations to students with disabilities were generally positive. However, attitudes of faculty members at ETSU did mirror the attitudes of faculty members at other universities in the provision of certain accommodations based on type (classroom or testing.) In general, faculty members were less willing to alter a test than to provide extended time for a test. Also, faculty members were less willing to provide lecture notes as opposed to allowing a student to record a lecture. It is suggested that the willingness of a faculty member to provide accommodations may hinge on knowledge, experience, and ease of providing the accommodation.

Studies of Individual traits perceived as necessary to achieve managerial effectiveness, while multitudinous in the world of commerce, have yet to be undertaken as they apply to managers in residential facilities serving mentally retarded individuals. The problem of this study was to identify a group of individual traits perceived as characteristic of effective managers in residential facilities for the mentally retarded. Projectively, the identified traits could constitute valid criterion for consideration in the selection process utilized in employing managers for both public and private facilities. The primary purpose of this study was to develop an instrument which would enable the interviewer to secure information regarding specific individual traits. An informed predictive decision regarding the effective management potential, of the individual, for a residential facility for mentally retarded individuals would be greatly enhanced. The secondary purpose of the study was to focus on a comparison between group responses for each of the 25 trait items. The study will identify significant differences and relationships between the responses of State Directors of Mental Retardation Programs, Assistants to Texas Deputy Commissioner for Mental Retardation, Superintendents of Texas State Schools for the Mentally Retarded and a select group of managerial personnel within Texas State Schools for the Mentally Retarded. Comparison of response profiles contribute to an index of preferential traits for each of the managerial groups by contrasting patterns of preferences between all managerial groups and delineating traits which were common in preference among all groups. The tertiary purpose of the study was to identify patterns of personal traits which should constitute valid criterion for consideration in the selection process utilized in employing managers for both public and private facilities. Specific attention was given to the managerial trait preferences of each group of managers included in the study.

The aim of this study is to explore what happens when the Swedish disability policy (LSS) is translated into practice. The study focuses on the organizing that takes place at a local, municipal level. It uses a qualitative approach with a mix of qualitative methods and is actively involving practitioners in the co-­‐ production of empirical data. Drawing on Actor-­‐network theory (ANT) as a conceptual framework, the analysis focuses on how actors and actants are assembled in networks. A detailed map is developed, comprising relations, formations and tensions that emerges from the efforts of translating policy into practice, Results identify the function of front-­‐line managers as a central and overloaded hub. It shows how unforeseen, unintended and undesirable effects arise as a result of both planned action programs and recurrent, not anticipated events. An ongoing professionalization, is described as a result of internal organizational conditions, rather than policy implementation or the self-­‐ interest of professions. The study illustrates the complexity and challenges of welfare organizations and the results can be used for further organizational studies as well as serve as a roadmap for organizational development within disability services.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.