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Magister Artium - MA / Disability, as a topic of investigation, is considerably overlooked in the discipline of sociolinguistics. This thesis aims to bridge the gap between disability and sociolinguistics studies, as I critically explore the role language and multilingualism plays in the way we understand and construct the discourses of disability. Based on a year-long ethnographic study at what is defined as a “special needs school”, I offer a first-hand description of being a researcher with a disability through personal anecdotes. In these anecdotes, I account for my own positionality to highlight the importance of reflectivity and positionality when doing ethnographic fieldwork. Aside from these personal anecdotes, I also capture everyday interactions among young disabled people. In order to analyse these disabled youth multilingual interactions, I applied the notions of stylization, enregisterment and embodied intersectionality. In these examinations, we are able to see how multilingualism is used to negotiate a position of being seen as disabled. By looking at these personal anecdotes and everyday interactions as whole, the study provides a more comprehensive view of the way we talk and represent disability. I conclude this thesis by offering a new direction for disability and youth multilingualism studies, a direction that emphasises the importance of positionality when doing research on the agency of disabled people.

Faculty of Health Sciencs School of Public Health 961299p muzi@hst.org.za / Most leading causes of death and disability in developing countries can be prevented, treated, or at least alleviated with cost effective essential drugs. However, hundreds of millions of people do not have regular access to essential drugs despite the fact that essential drugs can prevent many deaths. The aim of this study was to determine factors associated with essential drugs shortages in Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities (i.e. clinics and community health centres) in Mopani District in the Limpopo Province. Forty-five facilities were selected by means of stratified (by sub-district) random sampling. Forty-five professional nurses, who were in charge of the facility on the day of the interviews, were interviewed. A structured questionnaire was used for the data collection. Six pharmacists, from the six hospitals that supply drugs to the PHC facilities, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. A one-on-one informal interview was held with 2 Hospital Superintendents and the Acting Provincial Chief Pharmaceutical Director. The study was both a retrospective and prospective observational study based on review of historical data, interviews with key players and direct observation of current practice. The tools used to collect and analyse the data were based on those developed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Health Systems Trust (HST) with some adjustments and adaptation. The District STI Quality of Care (DISCA) Tool was used in the other thirty-six facilities, at which the structured questionnaire was not administered, to test prescribing indicators in relation to diagnosis, the correctness of and dosage of drugs dispensed and also drugs availability.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Adults with Intellectual Disability (ID) are at an elevated risk of osteoporosis based on lower peak bone mass and medical characteristics. However, there is little data as to how the medical characteristics affect screening or at what ages people are being screened. Methods: A secondary cross-sectional data analysis of was conducted of 4777 adults witl1 Intellectual Disability to determine characteristics associated with an elevated risk for osteoporosis and receipt of bone density screening. Hypotheses were that increasing age, use of antiseizure medication, living in a 24 hour residential setting, and receiving a flu vaccine increased the likelihood of screening. Bivariate analyses were initially performed, tl1en data were stratified by gender and logistic regressions were performed. Findings: 22.2% of the sample in this study received bone density screening. Bivariate odds ratios identified each of the hypothesized variables as significantly associated with receiving screening. Additionally, many of the covariates analyzed identified significant associations with receiving screening.Data were then stratified by gender and evaluated in a logistic regression. In men, increasing age, tl1e use of antiepileptic medication (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2-2.0), and receiving the flu vaccine (adjusted OR 1.5; 95% CI 1.2-2.0) were associated witl1 an increased likelihood of screening, controlling for confounding. Living in a 24 hour residential setting was not significantly associated with screening (adjusted OR 1.2; 95% CI 0.91-1.6). In women, increasing age, the use of antiepileptic medication (adjusted OR 1.5; 95% CI 1.2-1.9), receiving the flu vaccine (adjusted OR 1.4; 95% CI 1.1-1.8), and living in a 24 hour residential setting (adjusted OR 1.4; 95% CI 1.1 -1.8) were all significantly associated with receiving screening. A history of Down syndrome, noted to increase risk of osteoporosis, was associated with a decreased likehl1ood of screening (adjusted OR 0.67; 95% CI 0.4 7-0. 94) in women, although it was not a significant association in men. Conclusions: While most variables related to osteoporosis are associated with an increased likelihood of screening, screening rates among in adults witl1 ID were low. Additionally, men and women have differences in variables related to screening. Better education and improved awareness may increase rates. / 2031-01-02

<p> In Madagascar, the barriers to persons with disabilities&rsquo; employability are multifaceted and relate to accessibility, funding, attitudes, and policies. Managers lack knowledge on disability and still perceive disabled persons as incompetent and associate them with costly accommodation needs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the management strategies and leadership styles that managers could use to enhance the employability chances of persons with disabilities. The conceptual framework featured the concepts of empowerment, employability, disability identity, and relevant transformational leadership theories. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 28 managers in private companies, institutions, cooperatives, and organizations in 3 regions of Madagascar. Data analysis was done with open hand coding and using NVivo 12 software. Key findings related to enabling management strategies that included promoting fair recruitment, tailoring jobs to disabled workers&rsquo; competences and health conditions, ensuring communication and reasonable accommodation. The study revealed the merit of an inclusive transformational leadership in fostering the employability of persons with disabilities, through coaching, in-training supports, compassion and kinship, motivation, and trust building. The study benefits managers who could better attend to disabled workers&rsquo; vocational needs. The study contributes to positive changes by influencing attitude change within the workplace and the community that could pave the way to an inclusive society in which disabled people could enjoy their rights to work.</p><p>

The focus of this research is the stress placed on a child when a sibling in the family has a chronic illness or disability, and analysis of what factors may buffer this stress and be associated with well child resilience in the face of family illness. Several major studies from other countries (Cadman, Boyle, & Offord, 1988; Houtzager, Grootenhuis, Caron & Last, 2005; Laufersweiler-Plass, Rudnik-Schoneborn, Zerres, Backes, Lehmkuhl & von Gontart, 2003; Sharpe & Rossiter, 2002; Williams, Williams, Graff, Hanson et al., 2002) suggest that there may be deleterious outcomes for well children in such families, for example higher rates of anxiety, depression, aggressive behaviour and rule breaking behaviour. However there is a lack of clarity about the processes which lead to these negative outcomes. The current study had two major research aims. The first was to describe social, family and personal characteristics of a group of well children with siblings who have a chronic illness or disability. The second aim was to examine relationships between adjustment problems in these well children and factors relating to the family (income, number of children in family, respite availability and utilisation), parents (stress, parenting style, maternal education, access to support) and children (ill child behaviour, amount of care required, well child age, well and ill child participation in social activities). Adjustment in well-children (n=102) was assessed using child self report, child projective and parent rating measures. Parents rated well children with ill siblings as significantly higher in externalising and internalising behaviour than age and gender matched population norms. Children did not rate their behaviour problems higher than norms but did indicate quite high rates of emotional problems on a projective (drawing) test. Parent-rated behaviours of well children were associated with parental, family and ill child variables, including (high) parental stress (daily hassles), (low) family income and (high) ill child internalising and externalising behaviours. Relationships between the well child's perception of having a sibling with a chronic illness or disability and various parent, child and family variables were also explored. Well children who listed more negative (than positive) attributes about having a sibling with a chronic illness were more aggressive and rule breaking in their behaviour. Well children with emotional problems, as assessed by the child family drawings, did not differ significantly from children without emotional problems in any of the parent, child or family variables however both the emotional problems index and the use of scribble drawings were associated with several measures of well child maladjustment. The results were discussed in terms of family systems and resilience theory. Implications for well children and their families including practical applications for existing interventions which target well children, ill siblings and parents were discussed and ideas for future directions for interventions to improve outcomes for well siblings were presented.

Home modification practice for people with impairments of ability involves redesigning existing residential environments as distinct from the creation of a new dwelling. A redesigner alters existing structures, fittings and fixtures to better meet the occupant�s ability requirements. While research on case-based design reasoning and healthcare informatics are well documented, the reasoning and process of redesign and its integration with individual human functional abilities remains poorly understood. Developing a means of capturing redesign knowledge in the form of case documentation online provides a means for integrating and learning from individual case-based redesign episodes where assessment and interventions are naturally linked. A key aim of the research outlined in this thesis was to gain a better understanding of the redesign of spaces for individual human ability with the view to computational modelling. Consequently, the foundational knowledge underpinning the model development includes design, redesign, case-based building design and human functional ability. Case-based redesign as proposed within the thesis, is a method for capturing the redesign context, the residential environment, the modification and the transformational knowledge involved in the redesign. Computational simulation methods are traditionally field dependent. Consequently, part of the research undertaken within this thesis involved the development of a framework for analysing cases within an online case-studies library to validate redesign for individuals and a method of acquiring reuse information so as to be able to estimate the redesign needs of a given population based on either their environment or ability profile. As home modification for people with functional impairments was a novel application field, an explorative action-based methodological approach using computational modelling was needed to underpin a case-based reasoning method. The action-based method involved a process of articulating and examining existing knowledge, suggesting new case-based computational practices, and evaluating the results. This cyclic process led to an improvement cycle that included theory, computational tool development and practical application. The rapid explosion of protocols and online redesign communities that utilise Web technologies meant that a web-based prototype capable of acquiring cases directly from home modification practitioners online and in context was both desirable and achievable. The first online version in 1998-99, encoded home modification redesigns using static WebPages and hyperlinks. This motivated the full-scale more dynamic and robust HMMinfo casestudies prototype whose action-based development is detailed within this thesis. The home modification casestudies library results from the development and integration of a novel case-based redesign model in combination with a Human- Activity-Space computational ontology. These two models are then integrated into a relational database design to enable online case acquisition, browsing, case reuse and redesign learning. The application of the redesign ontology illustrates case reuse and learning, and presents some of the implementation issues and their resolution. Original contributions resulting from this work include: extending case-based design theory to encompass redesign and redesign models, distinguishing the importance of human ability in redesign and the development of the Human-Activity-Space ontology. Additionally all data models were combined and their associated inter-relationships evaluated within a prototype made available to redesign practitioners. v Reflective and practitioner based evaluation contributed enhanced understanding of redesign case contribution dynamics in an online environment. Feedback from redesign practitioners indicated that gaining informed consent to share cases from consumers of home modification and maintenance services, in combination with the additional time required to document a case online, and reticence to go public for fear of critical feedback, all contributed to a less than expected case library growth. This is despite considerable interest in the HMMinfo casestudies website as evidenced by web usage statistics. Additionally the redesign model described in this thesis has practical implications for all design practitioners and educators who seek to create new work by reinterpreting, reconstructing and redesigning spaces.

<p>This study was about disability organisations opinion concerning ICF: s importance in their work to receive the same recognition and human rights for their members as citizens. The aim has been to elucidate disability organisations awareness about and use/non use of ICF and to increase the understanding of ICF: s importance for recognition and redistribution. Three different methods have been used: literature study, questionnaire survey, both on counties' (27) - and national (26) level and interviews (5) on national level. There is also a distinct difference between the disability organisations that represents people with visible impairments, who don’t think that ICF is so useful and they that represent people with invisible impairments, who thinks that ICF is a useful tool. This difference exists both in the use of ICF and the classifications importance for recognition but not ICF: s importance for redistribution. The main conclusion of the study is that awareness about and education around ICF is needed among disability organisations. A restructuring of ICF is also needed, the language should be simplified and the codes should be faded down so that the focus will be on ICF: s intention and the mind map that the classification offers. This is also necessary so that ICF becomes accessible for everybody.</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.

This study was about disability organisations opinion concerning ICF: s importance in their work to receive the same recognition and human rights for their members as citizens. The aim has been to elucidate disability organisations awareness about and use/non use of ICF and to increase the understanding of ICF: s importance for recognition and redistribution. Three different methods have been used: literature study, questionnaire survey, both on counties' (27) - and national (26) level and interviews (5) on national level. There is also a distinct difference between the disability organisations that represents people with visible impairments, who don’t think that ICF is so useful and they that represent people with invisible impairments, who thinks that ICF is a useful tool. This difference exists both in the use of ICF and the classifications importance for recognition but not ICF: s importance for redistribution. The main conclusion of the study is that awareness about and education around ICF is needed among disability organisations. A restructuring of ICF is also needed, the language should be simplified and the codes should be faded down so that the focus will be on ICF: s intention and the mind map that the classification offers. This is also necessary so that ICF becomes accessible for everybody.