The evaluation of the implementation of disability policies is a result of the low rate of public participation in the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature’s programs as well as the low number of disabled persons who are employed. Institutions like Parliaments and Legislatures are law making institutions, some of their tasks in to attract comments, suggestions and ideas from all interested parties to participate in the law making process. They also have a responsibility to conduct vigorous oversight over the provincial government departments; this includes issues like compliance with the relevant policies and regulations. The data was collect from three different groupings namely the staff of ECPL, the members of provincial legislature as well as the general public which includes disabled persons. It was clear from the findings that the management and the MPL, who are decision makers of the institution, have a very shallow knowledge of the disability policies and regulations. There is a disability strategy which was made for all the legislatures and National Parliament; however the strategy has not been implemented in ECPL. The institution has to create a special programs unit that will promote equality in line with the Bill of Rights which enshrines the rights of all people in the country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom. The recommendations that were made included education and awareness programs and compliance with regulations like the Employment Equity Act that seeks to unsure that the employment equity targets are met.

This thesis presents research conducted on work, income, and educational characteristics of disabled people in Canada. This research is specifically concerned with the comparison of gender inequality between the disabled population and the non-disabled population. The research question is 'what is the consequence of disability on gender inequality?'. Using survey data from the 1986 Health and Activity Limitations Survey (HALS) a series of statistical comparisons where made between the non-disabled and disabled populations across a wide range of social and economic characteristics. The statistical research presented includes both cross tabulations and regression analyses. The research concludes that the extent of gender inequality - 'the gender gap' - is comparable between the non-disabled and disabled populations. The stigma of disability does not appear to either diminish nor exacerbate gender inequality in paid work. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

M.Ing. (Mechanical Engineering) / This research aims at identifying technologies which could be used to produce a communication aid for the speechless severely disabled person. A number of techniques are investigated which would enable the disabled to communicate by means of decoding eye movements. The tracking of the disabled's eye positions by means of two dimensional image processing and pattern recognition forms the basis of the input mechanism. A complete comparison between a number of candidate edge detectors is done to ensure that the system would function in as closeto real-time as is possible. Ancillary techniques such as a reduced grammar and a Markov model for letter posterior probabilities are developed and shown to improve the communication channel bandwidth. Simulated resultsshowwhat communication rate gains could be achieved. It appears that a possible communication aid could be built to perform at rates exceeding present day communication aids for the severely disabled at prices that could make such a device an economic possibility.

It has been established that people with disabilities are in most cases excluded from society and major activities in society such as social recreation and employment in the open labour market. Only 1 % of people with disabilities in South Africa are working in the open labour market. Only some of the 99%, who do not work, receive a small grant from the state, which is their only form of income (White Paper on Integrated National Disability Strategy, 1997: 2-3). It is however an objective of the South African government to achieve equity in the open labour market. According to the Employment Equity Act, 1998 (Act No. 55 of 1998), employers must not discriminate against any person, in this case the person with a disability, and should employ and reasonably accommodate the needs of people with disabilities. This causes a dilemma for many employers, because of stigma and misconceptions of disability and lack of knowledge and skills to accommodate and integrate disabled people in the workplace. There is also no training program or guidelines for a training program, developed through an empirical research process, available to assist employers in this process of integrating people with disabilities into the open labour market. As little research has formally been done regarding the attitudes, perceptions and needs of employers to integrate people with disabilities into the labour market, the subject of this study is relatively new. The researcher has therefore conducted an exploratory research study to explore employment possibilities for people with disabilities, the attitudes, perceptions and needs of employers as well as barriers that prevent the employment of disabled people. Based on this information the researcher has described guidelines for a training program for employers to integrate people with disabilities into the open labour market. This research study utilised the dominant-less-dominant model Creswell (in De Vos et aI., 2002: 365-367) has identified. The dominant approach was the quantitative approach, because of the structured interviews that were utilised in the collection of the data. Intervention and developmental research, a model from Rothman and Thomas, was utilised , because new knowledge was developed in this study. A framework for this study was established by undertaking a literature study regarding the theoretical framework for the study, disability as a social phenomenon, employers and the open labour market and strategies to integrate people with disabilities into the open labour market. Based on the literature study, a structured interview schedule was developed and 30 respondents took part in this study. The empirical research findings according to structured interviews with 30 respondents were analysed, interpreted and graphically displayed. According to these findings, guidelines for a training program for employers to integrate people with disabilities into the open labour market were formulated and further recommendations were made. The most important recommendation include: • To develop, on the grounds of these guidelines, a training program for employers to integrate disabled people into the open labour market, which can be tested, evaluated and disseminated in the future. / Dissertation (MSD (Research))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to examine if in the accommodation situation, coworkers are likely to use the need rule when determining whether an accommodation is warranted or not, and if they do, if using the need rule is likely to result in more positive justice judgments.

The problem examined in this study was the lack of policy in New York State regarding the provision of prioritized residential services for intellectually disabled individuals who are being cared for by an aging caregiver. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore and document the needs experienced by aging parents regarding securing the future of their intellectually disabled adult child. The theoretical framework for this study was based on Sabatier’s advocacy coalition framework. The research questions examined the lived experiences of aging parents caring for an adult child with an intellectual disability what parents perceive their needs are in order to secure their adult intellectually disabled child’s future. Data were retrieved from 5 parents who resided in New York State. The findings from this study confirmed existing literature indicating that aging parents will need to secure residential placement or alternative living arrangements before they can no longer care for their adult intellectually disabled child. Another finding from this study was that the pertinent service delivery program does not provide direct assistance to these families. Therefore, advocacy was a necessary action in order to obtain services. The voices of the parents could influence policy makers to make aging parents with an adult intellectually disabled child a higher priority when seeking residential placement, provide direct representation from OPWDD, and provide residential placement that fits the ID adult’s needs. These programmatic changes may result in positive social change for this population

Research has found that there are several variables that place children 'at risk' for later school problems. Some of these variables include low socio-economic status (SES), special education eligibility in early childhood, race, and gender. Federally funded preschool programs, such as Head Start and Even Start, provide services for children from low SES backgrounds. Although these programs boast a variety of positive outcomes, there is very little research that conclusively measures their long-term effectiveness. Additionally, the children served in these types of programs still lag behind their middle-class peers overall when they exit the program, and they are more 'at risk' for later academic problems than their peers from higher SES backgrounds. These academic problems, particularly difficulties in learning to read, increase the likelihood that these children will later be referred for special education services. Moreover, as minority children are disproportionately living in poverty in the United States, researchers have called attention to how children from lower SES backgrounds frequently attend low performing schools. In turn, the impact of poverty and placement in poorer performing schools has been linked/associated with discouraging outcomes for various minority groups; for example, African American males tend to be disproportionately represented in special education programs throughout their school years. Likewise, children who have the language impairment (LI) or developmental delay (DD) label as preschoolers are much more likely to receive special education services at a later time in their schooling. Specific literacy-based curricula are being developed and studied to target the needs of these preschool children who are 'at risk' of later special education placement. One such study, the Preschool Curricula Evaluation Research (PCER) project, took place in Leon and Taylor County school districts in northern Florida. This study followed-up the children from the PCER study to examine the effects of an inclusive prekindergarten program by answering the following related research questions: (a) What is the stability of the eligibility classification for special education from preschool into the early elementary grades? (b) Do variations in the preschool curricula to which children are exposed to alter the stability of the eligibility classification? and (c) Are there variables that predict the stability of eligibility classification? The eligibility status was quite stable as children eligible for special education in PreK were 21 times more likely to be eligible for special education. There were less conclusive findings related to curriculum condition. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2008. / July 1, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary Frances Hanline, Professor Directing Thesis; Christopher J. Lonigan, Committee Member; Stephanie Al’Otaiba, Committee Member.

Bibliography: pages 37-38. / The work undertaken for my Masters degree seeks to address some of the prejudice experienced by disabled people. Society's concept of a normal body prescribes unattainable standards for people with disabilities, thereby isolating and marginalising them. Instead of accommodating these physical differences, society encourages disabled people to withdraw from society or to try to conform to able-bodied ideals and to appear 'as normal as possible'. The very physical presence of disabled people challenges these assumptions of normality. Therefore, attempts are made to cosmetically hide the offending part or exclude the person from society (e.g. a hollow shirt sleeve or 'special' school). When individuals fail to conform to the prescribed standards of normality, they face the stigma of being viewed as pitifully inferior and dependent upon their able-bodied counterparts. In this way disabled people do not 'suffer' so much from their condition, as from the oppression of able-bodied biases. Through different eyes, society could be seen as handicapped as a result of its inability to adapt to, or deal with difference. In reality, however, disabilities are experienced by many people and can range from those which are physically visible and easily identified to those less obvious, but often more debilitating such as abrasive, socially aggressive personalities or learning disabilities. It is possible, therefore, to extend the understanding of the term disability to any physical or emotional impairment that limits a person's functioning within a so-called normal society. Although many people and organisations have searched for less pejorative or negative terms to describe an impairment such as 'Very Special', 'people with abilities' or 'physically challenged', these attempts have failed to reverse prejudice. Instead, these descriptions have only re-described the emphasis on 'otherness' and 'difference'. In addition, these replaced descriptions are again associated with the same stigmas that they were intentionally designed to avoid. In the following discussion I have consciously used the word disabled or disability to refer to individuals with various disabilities which I have nevertheless defined as socially constructed. In doing so I am suggesting no pejorative associations. Through this project I wanted to explore notions of disability within various debates associated with disability and society. I have done this in the context of my own experience of disability, and my own attempts to come to terms with disability. In this sense this project represents a personal journey.

The purpose of this paper is to survey the work facilities and rehabilitative services available to the handicapped person in the United States. Information for this paper was obtained from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Goodwill Industries of Oregon, library sources and the Department of vocational Rehabilitation for many of the fifty states … The area of interest for this paper is that of rehabilitation. By the term rehabilitation is meant, "To return to an individual the ability to function as he did before becoming handicapped by physical or mental illness, or in the case of those born with physical or mental handicaps, to make the individual capable of working successfully in "normal" working environments in spite of his limitations."