This study investigated postsecondary disability service providers' (DSP) perceived usefulness of an example of a well-developed SOP. This example SOP was included in a 22 question survey, administered electronically to DSPs who are members of the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD). The participants (n=298) were asked to rate the usefulness of the test scores, rationale for accommodation, history of use or success of accommodation, report writer's recommendations, and student input included in the example SOP for making accommodation decisions. ANOVAs were used to determine if the perceived usefulness of the parts of the Model SOP varied as a function of the DSPs' highest degree, disciplines or fields of study, training for the interpretation of disability documentation, and/or years of experience in postsecondary disability services. DSPs with less than five years of experience (M=1.85, SD = .87) found the report writer's recommendations more useful than DSPs with greater than 10 years of experience (M=2.24, SD = 1.02). DSPs with 5-10 years of experience did not differ significantly from either of the other groups. Additionally, statistical significance was approached (p = .085) suggesting that DSPs with doctorate degrees compared to DSPs with a master's degree or a bachelor's degree may find the history of use or success less useful for accommodation decisions. Overall, the average usefulness ratings for all DSP groupings for the identified parts of the SOP were in the extremely useful or very useful range. / School of Education; / School Psychology / PhD; / Dissertation;

The disability community is one of the largest minority groups vulnerable to social exclusion and marginalization, too often forced into poverty, unemployment and social isolation through dependence on the state. This is the result of systemic discrimination, and is being challenged by the social model of disability which frames disability as a political creation: it proposes that barriers, prejudice, and exclusion created by society (purposely or inadvertently) are the ultimate factors defining disability. The social model empowers people with disabilities to dismantle barriers so they have choice, flexibility, and control to gain the dignity, autonomy, equality, and solidarity associated with human rights and citizenship, and calls for research that takes an emancipatory approach and has a political commitment to confront oppression and exclusion. This interdisciplinary Masters thesis looks at the ways co-operatives can be vehicles for inclusion and empowerment for the disability community. It looks particularly at the multi-stakeholder model of co-operative, which is especially promising for the empowerment of the disability community as it brings together different member categories in an appropriate form of interdependence. My research uses case study methodology to explore how socially constructed barriers are the impairment to development in the disability community and to identify successes where informal multi-stakeholder co-operatives have been used to empower people with disabilities through analysis on four dimensions: how consumer-controlled the co-op is, use of multi-stakeholder alliances, promotion of the social model of disability, and ability to promote economic inclusion and social solidarity. The disability community needs new opportunities for empowerment and community development to overcome disadvantage and marginalization, and this thesis explores the potential of multi-stakeholder co-operatives, vis-à-vis the social model of disability, to do this. This research will help shape policies needed to foster social inclusion to empower people with disabilities and build disability solidarity through co-operative development.

Individuals with non-apparent, physical disabilities face unique social challenges from those that are encountered by the more visibly disabled. The absence of visible cues indicating physical impairment causes ambiguity in social situations, leaving the sufferer vulnerable to moral judgments and social sanctions when they are unable to embody and perform to cultural norms. This dynamic generates a closeted status that the individual must learn to navigate. Using Eve Sedgwick's "The Epistemology of the Closet," this paper deploys auto-ethnography, traditional ethnographic techniques, and literature reviews to illuminate a third space of functioning between the outwardly 'healthy' and the visibly disabled.

The disability community is one of the largest minority groups vulnerable to social exclusion and marginalization, too often forced into poverty, unemployment and social isolation through dependence on the state. This is the result of systemic discrimination, and is being challenged by the social model of disability which frames disability as a political creation: it proposes that barriers, prejudice, and exclusion created by society (purposely or inadvertently) are the ultimate factors defining disability. The social model empowers people with disabilities to dismantle barriers so they have choice, flexibility, and control to gain the dignity, autonomy, equality, and solidarity associated with human rights and citizenship, and calls for research that takes an emancipatory approach and has a political commitment to confront oppression and exclusion. This interdisciplinary Masters thesis looks at the ways co-operatives can be vehicles for inclusion and empowerment for the disability community. It looks particularly at the multi-stakeholder model of co-operative, which is especially promising for the empowerment of the disability community as it brings together different member categories in an appropriate form of interdependence. My research uses case study methodology to explore how socially constructed barriers are the impairment to development in the disability community and to identify successes where informal multi-stakeholder co-operatives have been used to empower people with disabilities through analysis on four dimensions: how consumer-controlled the co-op is, use of multi-stakeholder alliances, promotion of the social model of disability, and ability to promote economic inclusion and social solidarity. The disability community needs new opportunities for empowerment and community development to overcome disadvantage and marginalization, and this thesis explores the potential of multi-stakeholder co-operatives, vis-à-vis the social model of disability, to do this. This research will help shape policies needed to foster social inclusion to empower people with disabilities and build disability solidarity through co-operative development.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Even though attitudes have been studied for many years, attitudes toward individuals with disabilities still remain an important issue, today (Geskie & Salasek, 1988; Popovich, Scherbaum, Scherbaum & Polinko, 2003). With the relationship between numerous demographic factors and attitudes toward those with disabilities being inconsistent across existing research and the absence of research conducted in the South African context this research study investigated whether variables such as gender, age, education level, exposure to a person with a disability or having a friend or family member with a disability had an effect on attitude towards disability. The population of this study constituted students from the Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) Faculty and Support Staff in a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape. A non-probability convenience sample method was utilised of which 140 respondents completed two questionnaires. Namely, a Biographical questionnaire and the Affective Reactions Subscale of the Disability Questionnaire (Popovich et al. (2003). Statistical analyses included both descriptive and inferential statistics (the t-Test and ANOVA). According to the findings of this research study, significant relationships do not exist between variables such as gender, age, educational level, amount of contact and exposure to or having a friend or family member with disability and staff and student attitudes toward those with disabilities in a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape. A few limitations related to the study were recognized and it is recommended that a combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches be implored as well as other faculties and Institutions in the Western Cape be used to contribute to greater representativeness and generalisability for future research. Also, to establish organisations or institutions as employers and institutions of choice among those with disabilities, organisations and institutions are to better market disability facilities and accommodations. It is also proposed that students and staff with disabilities should be encouraged to fully participate in the design and event management of disability awareness campaigns.

In this study the impact of socio economic factors in raising a child with mental disability was discussed and explored. There is limited research done on this topic in the world and in South Africa. Studies show that there is a direct link between poverty and mental disability. There are multiple factors that have an influence on a family that have a child that suffers from mental disability. These factors include stress and unresolved emotions regarding the child that suffers from mental disability, financial burdens, dealing with the child’s problematic behaviour and the social stigma associated with disabilities. It was found that there is little support available for families that have to deal with all these factors. Different aspects of mental disability have been discussed in this study in order to create a better understanding of mentally disability and to provide all the necessary information surrounding mental disability. Aspects that were discussed are: a) What is mental disability, b) Levels of mental disability, c) The link between poverty and mental disability, d) Socio-economic and psychosocial factors that have an impact on the family, e) Causes of mental disability, f) Role of the social worker, and g) Services provided to families. These aspects have been discussed through literature and in the empirical study. Findings from this study show that families that have a child with mental disability also have to contend with a lot of socio-economic factors that play a role in the family. Having a child with a mental disability in the house has an influence on all members of the family. Children with a mental disability have serious emotional and behavioural problems. Parents of mentally challenged children commonly experience different emotions. Raising a child with a mental disability may be more expensive than raising a typical child. It was thus concluded that there is a need to explore the impact of socio-economic factors in raising a child with a mental disability. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Social Work and Criminology / MSW / Unrestricted

Given its vast population, India has one of the highest absolute numbers of people with intellectual disability (PwIDs) in the world. Studies have placed the prevalence as high as 3.1% of children aged between 2 to 5 years and 5.2% of children aged between 6 to 9 years. India recently passed the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD Act), to align itself with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This thesis applied the complementary methods of the review of academic and grey literature, document analysis of the RPwD Act, and in-depth informant interviews to become the first full study on the extent to which the RPwD Act meets the needs of PwIDs. Drawing on the biopsychosocial model of disability and intersectional theory, the findings show that the RPwD Act only partially meets the needs of PwIDs. The RPwD Act does incorporate progressive elements such as affirmative action provisions in the labour market, measures to prevent unethical research on PwIDs, and steps toward inclusive education. However, the Act stipulates a disability certification process that remains mired in the medical model of disability and is mostly inaccessible in rural areas. It also continues the system of legal guardianship dating to the colonial era which deprives many PwIDs of legal capacity and leaves some of them confined to long-term institutions with highly inadequate levels of care. Other problems in the Act include inadequate provisions to provide privacy, reproductive rights and education, and protection from discrimination.

Enactment of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 expanded and clarified the rights of students with disabilities in higher education (Connor, 2011; Pena, 2014; Troiano, 2003). In the past three decades, the enrollment rate of students with learning disabilities (LD) in higher education has tripled. However, the magnitude and quality of scholarship addressing the experiences of students with disabilities (including LD) does not reflect this exponential shift. While existing literature addresses dancers with physical and developmental disabilities (Kuppers, 2004; Sandahl & Auslander, 2005; Whatley, 2007, 2008) and children with learning disabilities (Cone & Cone, 2011), research on dancers with learning disabilities in postsecondary settings is nil. Research that includes the voices of identifying dancers with learning disabilities in higher education is necessary in order to discover more effective pathways and approaches to interventions and learning strategies. This qualitative study examines the perceptions of six dance majors and minors with learning disabilities (LD) in higher education dance programs from five universities located in the New York/New Jersey/Eastern Pennsylvania and Midwest regions of the United States. The purpose of the study is to privilege the voices and perspectives of an underrepresented population in dance in order to illuminate challenges, learning strategies, and experienced meanings within creating, learning, and performing dance in higher education. Qualitative sources of data include in-person interviews, non-participant observations, and participant reflective journals. Several rounds of coding and data analysis generated a multifaceted and nuanced portrait of six dancers with LDs’ challenges, strategies, and experienced meanings, both individual and composite, in higher education dance. Several described self-determined approaches through agentic acts of learning individualized to their unique LDs. For all dancers, emotional states undergirded challenges, strategies, and relationality in higher education dance. Further, descriptions of visibility, acceptance, and affirmation by peers and instructors in technique and composition classrooms illuminated the value of relational authenticity for these dancers. Research findings suggest areas in need of reformed practices while also illuminating extant teaching practices that effectively meet the needs of students, including the transparent integration of ameliorative strategies into higher education dance. Findings related to emotional challenges point to the importance of emotional support as a priority in higher education dance programs, a need that I suggest has become increasingly critical for all university dance students during this period of global pandemic. The study offers insight into the ways dance in higher education can be more accessible and inclusive by privileging the authority of the individual student and enabling authentic engagement with self and a broader relationality to different others. / Dance

Recently, disability and writing studies scholars have demonstrated the extent to which widely accepted approaches to the teaching of writing fail to address the fraught intersection between mental disability and academic commonplaces, such as multimodal texts and assignments, with real consequences for the well-being of our students (Yergeau; Oswal; Selfe). Given the dramatic rise of online and other multimodal forms of instruction that has characterized and continues to shape college writing classrooms in the era of COVID-19, the barriers to access (social, physical, and institutional) that exist in multimodal writing classrooms require deeper examination. Drawing upon disability studies scholarship from Price, Kerschbaum, and Walters, my dissertation examines the complex relationship between writing instruction and mental disability in the context of Metro University’s First Year Writing Program (FYWP) and explores the affordances disabled students bring to bear on the multimodal spaces of their writing classrooms. In addition to examining the program’s standard syllabus, policies, and assignments, I conducted individual interviews with Metro undergraduate students, including students with disabilities, to collect data on students’ experiences of course policies (e.g., participation; grading) and practices (e.g., online peer review; multimodal composing) in the first-year writing classroom. I used methods drawn from critical discourse analysis and disability studies to identify elements of the curriculum that presented potential barriers to students with mental disabilities, including cumulative, interconnected penalties for absences, tardiness, and late work; a policy of not grading essay drafts; and the absence of policies designed to address issues linked to mental health. My analysis has revealed conflicting levels of access to participation in the course, pointing to the need for multimodal learning environments flexible enough to address a wide range of access needs at once. This work contributes to emerging writing and disability scholarship on the role of multimodality in developing non-normative writing pedagogies and inclusive program designs. The study was reviewed by the IRB and deemed not to be human subjects research. It was conducted in partnership with the university’s Disability Resources and Services and FYWP, which adopted attendant policy recommendations. / English

Helping professionals have an important role in supporting access to education for individuals regarding health-promoting and responsible sexual behaviors, including context-appropriate masturbation. Sexuality education is limited for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, despite evidence supporting its place in teaching and supporting positive and appropriate sexual expression. While prior research has identified perception of professionals related to sexuality education and barriers to providing access to these programs and topics, none have identified methods to increase provider effectiveness in responding to sexual behaviors for the people they support. This study evaluated the components of behavioral skills training as a method of teaching Board Certified Behavior Analysts to develop interventions for sexual behavior.