The study presented here is about how to make the special needs user who has a profound intellectual disability and additional disabilities more involved in their implementation plan. Based on a life story interview the study aims at analyzing perceptions of procedures to enhance special needs users’ influence. The method used in this study was a qualitative research approach as an overall approach in order to use a narrative method where life history is the method. The focus has been to study a part of an individual life history - a specific domain in the life of the interviewee’s working career. The results demonstrate that the staff needs to have the knowledge of how to observe, what to observe and how to highlight the impact of consciousness in the interaction between involved participants. The result also shows that staff attitudes affect special needs user’s participation in the implementation plan. It is shown in the results that it is of importance that staff has the knowledge regarding observation as a method and an approach that provides the special needs user with opportunities to experience meaningfulness and to find everyday life comprehensible and manageable.

This research gave voice to teaching assistants, exploring their experiences and perceptions, in terms of their backgrounds, roles and responsibilities, experiences whilst studying on an NVQ programme, support from their schools, their aspirations and the progression routes available to them. A small-scale phenomenological study approach was adopted, aimed to interpret and explain human actions and thought through descriptions, capturing first person accounts. Qualitative data was collected from focus group interviews. The research found that the main entry route into the role of teaching assistant was that of parent-helper at the school their child(ren) attended. Previous employment was varied, however, previous skills and experience was not drawn upon or utilised by the schools. Differences in job titles were not reflected by the roles performed by the participants. Support from their schools for undertaking qualifications was limited and participants had little knowledge of progression routes available to them. The research concluded that there is a need for a transparent career structure, which indicates levels of responsibility. Linked to this should be nationally recognised qualifications, which every member of support staff would have to gain, at the appropriate level for the role they fulfil. Wages should reflect the roles and associated qualifications, bringing about a clearer picture of the job of ‘teaching assistant’.

This outcome study investigates whether music therapy can improve the emotional well-being of adolescents who are at risk of exclusion or underachievement. Specifically, it addresses music therapy’s impact on students’ self-esteem, anxiety, attitude towards learning, behaviour and relationships with peers. The setting for the research was a mainstream secondary school and its federated special school for students with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Over nineteen months, a mixed methods design was used to observe change in students before and after music therapy. One group received twenty, weekly, individual sessions, and the other formed a wait-list group for comparison and then received the same treatment. At four different times during the project quantitative data were collected from students, teaching staff and school records, and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with the students before and after their period of intervention. The study found that music therapy made a positive difference. The high level of treatment adherence (95%) of all twenty-two students confirmed music therapy’s appeal to this client group. The majority of teachers (58%) reported improvement in students’ social development and attitude overall, and for some mainstream students (56%) recognition of self-concept increased. The conviction with which students conveyed their positive experiences of music therapy was striking. The study supports the author’s argument for therapeutic support to be made available at secondary schools and promotes a student-centred approach, as exemplified in the thesis. It concludes that music therapy can be effective for youth at risk but requires more participants in subsequent investigations for it to be proved statistically.

The problem of this study was to determine if involvement in lecture-discussion classes of group centered counseling would significantly alter anxiety level, aspects of self-concept, or knowledge of mental retardation in parents of moderately mentally retarded children.

Syftet var att, ur de professionellas perspektiv, ta reda på hur kompetensen på grundsärskolan ser ut idag hos några informanter och vad som kan behöva förändras och eventuellt se annorlunda i denna verksamhet, för att möta och tillgodose elevernas stödbehov inom de kommande tio åren. Studien bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med åtta klasslärare i grundsärskolan. Pedagogerna fick ge uttryck för sin vision om hur en optimal organisation för verksamheten skulle kunna se ut, samt vilken sorts kompetens som skulle kunna gynna undervisningen och dess kvalitet. I resultatet framkom det att utmaning med arbetet med eleverna var att berika elevernas språk och kommunikationsförmåga. Andra svårigheter som belystes var åldersadekvat undervisningsmaterial och höga kunskapskrav. Klasslärarna ansåg att det fortfarande saknas professioner i verksamheterna såsom speciallärare, specialpedagog, IT-pedagog, samt även flerspråkiga pedagoger. Andra väsentliga faktorer som informanterna också påtalade i studien var pedagogiska lärverktyg, samt att grundsärskolans lärmiljö måste konstrueras och anpassas så att de blir mer tillgängliga för de elever som går där, både fysiskt och psykiskt. De konstaterade också att det fanns faktorer som påverkar möjligheten till en undervisning av god kvalitet, både pedagogernas kompetens, lokalernas utformning – omständigheter som tillsammans bildar undervisningskontexten.

Essa pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar o funcionamento das equipes de trabalho formadas por pessoas portadoras de necessidades especiais, as mudanças na gestão de pessoas e a gerência de equipes. As equipes da empresa pesquisada são compostas pela integração entre pessoas portadoras de necessidades especiais e não portadoras. A pesquisa foi realizada na Natura, empresa fabricante de cosméticos, que tem como um dos principais valores a diversidade. Nesse sentido, o objetivo da pesquisa é analisar o funcionamento da equipe de trabalho formada por portadores de necessidades especiais e não portadores e o reflexo nas mudanças que ocorrem nas pessoas e na gestão dessas pessoas. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida através de um estudo de campo realizado numa célula de produção com 27 membros, mas a empresa conta com aproximadamente 3.000 colaboradores, sendo aproximadamente 250 portadores de algum tipo de deficiência. Os resultados encontrados esclarecem que existe uma grande complexidade na gestão de pessoas e que os portadores de necessidades especiais podem participar das equipes de trabalho formadas por portadores e não portadores, pois participam das equipes como membros comuns no tocante a produtividade. O estudo revela que no convívio com as pessoas portadoras de necessidades especiais as pessoas não portadoras de algum tipo de deficiência passam a entender que esses profissionais se relacionam e produzem como qualquer outra pessoa e também passam a notar isso não apenas na empresa, mas em toda sociedade. A mudança ocorrida nesse processo é principalmente do ponto de vista comportamental, onde os valores pessoais mudam conforme o convívio. / This research aims investigate the work teams development formed by people with special needs, the changes in the management of people and the management teams. The teams of the researched company are composed by integration among the special needs people and not special needs people. The research was done in the cosmetics manufacturer company named Natura, which has as one of the main values the diversity. In that sense, the research purpose is to analyze the work teams development formed by special needs people and not special needs people and the changes which occur in the people and in the management of those people. The research was developed through a field study done in a cell production with 27 members, but the company counts with approximately 3.000 employees, where approximately 250 people have some special needs. The founded results clarify that there is a great complexity in the people management and the special needs people can take part of teams work formed by people with this kind of problem or not, because they take part of the teams as common members in regard to the productivity. The study shows that, in the companionship with special needs people, the people who have not this kind of problem start to understand that these professionals have a good relationship with the others and they produce like anybody else. The not special needs people notice this not only in the company, but in all the society. The change occurred in that process is mainly from a behavioral, where the personal values change as the conviviality.

This thesis is a case study of three virtual communities for parents of children with special needs in Taiwan. The main focus of this research was on understanding the role that virtual communities play in providing support for parents. This study addressed the following research questions: How do virtual communities provide support for parents of children with special needs in Taiwan? What motivates Taiwanese parents of children with special needs to search for support through virtual communities? How does the support provided through virtual communities impact the relationship between Taiwanese parents of children with special needs and professionals? This thesis constructs an analytical framework that helps in understanding the concept of support in virtual communities for parents of children with special needs. Employing this framework identified three broad types of support: informational support, advocacy, and emotional support. In this study, informational support included parenting skills, advice, and access to services; advocacy referred to articulating needs and rights; and emotional support included solidarity, increased self-esteem, acceptance, and affirmation. All three virtual communities were established by parents; two are managed by parents, and one is managed by a professional. Web-based observations were conducted in each virtual community from November 2014 to December 2015. Semi-structured interviews were held with 14 parents, 7 professionals, and 6 administrators and concentrated on experiences of, and motivations for, seeking and providing support through virtual communities. The analytical framework was used to identify broad themes in the data. A thematic analysis was employed to look across the cases to identify commonalities and differences, and finally, a systematic analysis borrowing from social network analysis was used to map the interactions among the participants. The main findings of this study indicate that information and support related to parenthood and parenting skills was easily accessed through virtual communities. Parents were found to join together to share their experiences of parenting, comfort one another, and advocate for their needs through the virtual communities. The parents occasionally excluded members of the community to ensure that all members shared similar parenting values. In addition, parents are beginning to gain control of knowledge and their relationships with professionals through virtual communities. This paper's main contributions to knowledge are as follows: (1) Virtual communities allow parents to redefine themselves in ways that they believe are publicly acceptable. (2) Parents are using virtual communities to exercise power to renegotiate their identity and obtain resources. (3) Parents are also starting to alter the power relationships between themselves and professionals.

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