This thesis examines the accuracy of accessibility information for parks and the related experiences of visitors. It explores whether or not there is a gap between the information that is made available to the public and the experiences that are available on the ground. People with mobility impairments encounter barriers to movement. The provision of information on accessibility may assist those with impairments to select recreational opportunities that are compatible with their interests and abilities. Accordingly, the availability and accuracy of information on accessibility is evaluated through comparison with on-site field observations. Four parks of different management types – local, regional, provincial and national – are examined. Promotional information was gathered primarily from brochures and websites. Key informant interviews were conducted and on-site measurements of accessibility were taken. The quantity and accuracy of information on accessibility varied between the parks. Inconsistencies were found between the information on accessibility and the on-site situations. Details on park features like parking, trails, washrooms, visitor centers and campsites lacked volume, specifics and accuracy, and these features are important to individuals with a mobility impairment. Stronger links should be established between the monitoring of accessibility and the timely, accurate provision of accessibility information. There is willingness among park officials to address accessibility issues but financial constraints are widely regarded as being an impediment to action. As such, physical improvements to accessibility are most likely to occur as a part of general maintenance schedules. Nevertheless, regular systematic monitoring and reporting is not expensive and would benefit park management by enabling them to provide more accurate information to the public. The study also suggests that greater engagement with the impaired community could be beneficial to parks, official, and visitors.

A call for the design of programs focused on the development of self-awareness skills permeates the field of research and practice on postsecondary students with learning disabilities (LD). Important components of self-awareness are students' advanced understanding of learning, LD, and the social context (peers, instructors, classmates) of college learning. This study explores students with LD's conceptual understanding of learning and LD by situating it within developmental theoretical frameworks delineating the form and content of adult reasoning. Twelve female and five male college-students with LD participated in two-hour interviews. Students' thinking about others was explored by asking participants to reason about the behaviors, intentions, feelings and traits of the characters in two scenarios depicting typical dilemmas faced by students with LD. Students' conceptual understanding of learning and LD was elicited by means of open-ended questions followed by prompts. Students' responses were scored for level of cognitive complexity and coded for conceptual content. Overall, the students reasoned abstractly about learning and LD at a level of complexity expected from college-age population. They demonstrated well-developed understanding of others' expectations and motivations especially as they relate to the themes of self-identification, seeking accommodations, and understanding of LD. Students' conceptions of learning and LD presented qualitatively different variations on main themes. These variations paralleled the increase in complexity and were associated with experience(number of years of education). The overarching understanding of learning as acquiring knowledge transitioned from understanding learning as an external, given task to learning as an internal, personal-development process. The common understanding of LD as a difference transitioned from a difference related to an external label and an imposed constraint, to meaning of "difference" as a special ability, an asset, and a source of identity. These results indicate a possible progression in the evolution of the concepts of learning and LD throughout the college career of students with LD. The approach to this conceptual content and its description can inform and serve as starting points in the development of programs that foster the conceptual understanding of learning, LD, and the social-context of the educational enterprise, as a way of building these students' self-awareness skills.

Mothers of children with multiple disabilities have unique and important things to tell us about their children's schooling. In this work, the overarching question asks: How do the mothers of children with multiple disabilities narrate their experiences with their children's schooling, and what insights can their stories provide? Within a feminist framework that acknowledges participating mothers as “expert witnesses” (Traustadottir, 1991, p. 216) with important insights, this study employs a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to develop the themes that, taken together, can be said to describe these participants' experiences. Four mothers of children with multiple disabilities were interviewed in an open-ended qualitative manner, and their experiences are thematized in this thesis. It is my hope that the stories so generously offered by the participants, and the themes which arise from them, can play a part in guiding those involved in the education of students with multiple disabilities, in changing our practice and policies in order to truly include children with disabilities and their caregivers in our schools.

Mothers of children with multiple disabilities have unique and important things to tell us about their children's schooling. In this work, the overarching question asks: How do the mothers of children with multiple disabilities narrate their experiences with their children's schooling, and what insights can their stories provide? Within a feminist framework that acknowledges participating mothers as “expert witnesses” (Traustadottir, 1991, p. 216) with important insights, this study employs a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to develop the themes that, taken together, can be said to describe these participants' experiences. Four mothers of children with multiple disabilities were interviewed in an open-ended qualitative manner, and their experiences are thematized in this thesis. It is my hope that the stories so generously offered by the participants, and the themes which arise from them, can play a part in guiding those involved in the education of students with multiple disabilities, in changing our practice and policies in order to truly include children with disabilities and their caregivers in our schools.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how parents understand and experience their child’s involvement and non-involvement in community leisure experiences. The study involved five parents with children between eight and twenty-one years of age, and asked them about the recreation experiences of their child who had a cognitive and/or physical disability. Narrative methodology enabled a holistic, comprehensive and personal approach to exploring their experiences. Each parent completed two narrative interviews, the first to produce a narrative account and the second to explore the meaning of his or her narrative. This study used a two step analysis process to explore the narratives. The descriptive analysis focused on establishing the context, and creating the narrative account using the interview transcripts and my interpretation of the stories. An interpretive analysis was completed in three phases to explore the purpose of the story, the order and sequence and presentation of self, and explored the cultural practices of the narratives. From the narratives I found many parents told their stories for other parents or recreation practitioners. The key message from the stories was the importance of recreation for social networking for both parent and child. Important spaces from the stories were identified: space to be social, space to succeed and space to be engaged or included. Other characters played critical roles in the recreation experiences. Internal conflict was often experienced by parents where the desire for the child to participate clashed with the parents’ hesitation, concern, or schedule. The final phase of analysis revealed a difference between my understandings of key terms (segregation, integration and inclusion) and the parents’ understandings of those terms. Many parents and children had experienced a level of exclusion both from and within recreation experiences. Inclusion was found to be an enabling and disabling practice. I found gains in political power developed through increases in social and psychological power. Levels of trust and the phases of empowerment were important to the parents’ understandings of inclusion. The conclusions identified the parents as being responsible for negotiating recreation, and the children had an awareness of their disability. Finally, discrepancies about the meaning of segregation, integration and inclusion were identified.

Recent research has begun focusing on the connections between reading and mathematics. Little research, however, has examined connections between mathematics and other reading related skills, such as spelling. Moreover, working memory may a play a significant role in both systems. Results indicated a significant predictive relationship between spelling and mathematics. Furthermore, this relationship was found to be partially mediated by measures of phonological working memory.

The aim of this study was to, on the basis of normalization and autonomy; investigate how staff working in group homes discusses about sexuality of people with an intellectual disability. Our study was based on ten semi-structured interviews of both care staff and heads of group homes to get responses from different levels within the same organization. The empirical material was analyzed through the theory of social constructivism, which focuses on how we construct the world through interaction and language, and the normalization principle whose goal is that all people with developmental disabilities should have the opportunity to live like all other people. We view these theories as useful to gain understanding of the questions in our study. The result of this study showed that the subject only comes up for discussion when problems arise, that the communication on the subject is inadequate and more discussion is requested. Further the result illustrated that staff strives for people with developmental disabilities to feel they have autonomy but this is also a challenge in their work.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore how parents understand and experience their child’s involvement and non-involvement in community leisure experiences. The study involved five parents with children between eight and twenty-one years of age, and asked them about the recreation experiences of their child who had a cognitive and/or physical disability. Narrative methodology enabled a holistic, comprehensive and personal approach to exploring their experiences. Each parent completed two narrative interviews, the first to produce a narrative account and the second to explore the meaning of his or her narrative. This study used a two step analysis process to explore the narratives. The descriptive analysis focused on establishing the context, and creating the narrative account using the interview transcripts and my interpretation of the stories. An interpretive analysis was completed in three phases to explore the purpose of the story, the order and sequence and presentation of self, and explored the cultural practices of the narratives. From the narratives I found many parents told their stories for other parents or recreation practitioners. The key message from the stories was the importance of recreation for social networking for both parent and child. Important spaces from the stories were identified: space to be social, space to succeed and space to be engaged or included. Other characters played critical roles in the recreation experiences. Internal conflict was often experienced by parents where the desire for the child to participate clashed with the parents’ hesitation, concern, or schedule. The final phase of analysis revealed a difference between my understandings of key terms (segregation, integration and inclusion) and the parents’ understandings of those terms. Many parents and children had experienced a level of exclusion both from and within recreation experiences. Inclusion was found to be an enabling and disabling practice. I found gains in political power developed through increases in social and psychological power. Levels of trust and the phases of empowerment were important to the parents’ understandings of inclusion. The conclusions identified the parents as being responsible for negotiating recreation, and the children had an awareness of their disability. Finally, discrepancies about the meaning of segregation, integration and inclusion were identified.

When we develop accounts of the good life we inevitably need to work with simplified images of human beings so as to limit the ideas our account must grapple with. Yet, in the process of this simplification we often exclude certain types of agents from having moral status because our image of humanity does not take their key features into account. The problems created by this type of simplification are very apparent when we consider how virtue ethics deals with the lives of people with Intellectual Disabilities. Since virtue ethics focuses on reason it very quickly excludes people with limited intellectual functioning from being moral agents who have access to the happy life. In this thesis I explore this problem of exclusion further and present a revised set of virtues based on the Capabilities Approach by Martha Nussbaum. By developing this new focus for virtue ethics I create a virtue-based approach to the good life that is not only more inclusive of agents with limited intellectual functioning but also represents a richer path to the good life for all agents.

<p>We examine the effects of changed eligibility rules to disability pension by the 1979 Swedish pension reform on immigrant retirement behavior. The reform made disability pension in the form of basic pension available to a wider group of immigrants. By using the LINDA database in a “difference-in-difference” model we estimate the effects of the reform on the probability of retirement in the age group 40-64. We find a positive impact of the reform on immigrant retirement behavior among women. Our results also indicate that naturalization may have been a way to get access to disability pension for those who, before the reform, had no legal right to basic pension.</p>