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Rates of less perceptible social–behavioral–emotional disorders thought to be based in neurobiological brain differences have burgeoned, though much of disability studies remains focused on the need to challenge compulsory able-bodiedness. This chapter examines instead diverse families living with adult sons’ and daughters’ invisible disabilities, asking how mothers may challenge compulsory able-mindedness.

This chapter is based on 15 in-depth interviews conducted in 2017 and 2018 with mothers originally interviewed between 2003 and 2008.

The accounts foreground tensions for those at the boundaries of “normality” in a culture that valorizes citizen’s independence, productivity, and heroic overcoming of any inability. Mothers of “precariously normal” adult sons and daughters invited to reflect on their earlier accounts reveal both the power of such dominant narratives and the possibilities to disrupt and challenge this public storytelling.

Findings of this study point to the alternative narratives and identities sought by disability studies and bring invisible social–behavioral–emotional disabilities into discussions that have largely centered on visible physical disabilities. These findings also underscore the complex similarities and differences in families’ experiences of disability across class and race divides, while suggesting the need for institutional change and greater, less punitive, public resources.

This paper aims to extend understanding of the cues that customers with disabilities use to judge inclusion/welcome (or not) in interactions in retail stores.

Critical incident interviews were conducted with 115 informants who provided rich descriptions of 113 welcoming incidents and 105 unwelcoming incidents. Interview transcripts were content analyzed to determine inductively the cues customers with disabilities use to perceive welcoming.

Four primary situational factors explain to what perceptions of welcome/inclusion are attributed: service personnel; store environmental factors; other customers; and product/service assortments. Further, a disability becomes salient only when there is an interaction between these situational factors and consumers' disabilities.

The findings suggest an extension to Bitner's servicescape conceptualization in that it specifies that the assessment of an environment as enabling or disabling is important for at least some customers in deciding whether they should stay, go, or return to a particular servicescape.

The results reveal that consumers with disabilities should be viewed as customers first, and only as possessing a disability in particular interactions in the customer‐firm interface.

This research presents the views of a set of customers who are under‐represented in research samples. It discusses how not all people with disabilities are alike and begins to develop a deeper understanding of their behavior as consumers. The research is valuable for retail managers and service providers who need useful information for training employees, for designing servicescapes that are welcoming for consumers with disabilities, and for fulfilling the inclusive intent of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It will also be of interest to academics who are engaged in research that attempts to improve the quality of life for consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the lived experiences of dyslexics in engaging with all kinds of alphanumeric authentication mechanisms.

A significant proportion of the world’s population experiences some degree of dyslexia, which can lead to spelling, processing, sequencing and retention difficulties. Passwords, being essentially sequences of alphanumeric characters, make it likely that dyslexics will struggle with these, even more so than the rest of the population. Here, this study explores the difficulties people with dyslexia face, their general experiences with passwords, the coping strategies they use and the advice they can provide to developers and others who struggle with passwords. This paper collects empirical data through semi-structured interviews with 13 participants. Thematic analysis was used to provide an in-depth view of each participant’s experience.

The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence related to the inaccessibility dimensions of passwords as an authentication mechanism, especially for dyslexics and to recommend a solution direction.

There is a possible volunteer bias, as this study is dealing with self-reported data including historical and reflective elements and this paper is seeking information only from those with self-declared or diagnosed dyslexia. Furthermore, many expressed interest or curiosity in the relationship between dyslexia and password difficulties, for some a motivation for their participation. Finally, given that the participants told us that dyslexics might hide, it is possible that the experiences of those who do hide are different from those who chose to speak to us and thus were not hiding.

A few authors have written about the difficulties dyslexics face when it comes to passwords, but no one has asked dyslexics to tell them about their experiences. This paper fills that gap.

Spanish-speaking children learn to read words written in a relatively transparent orthography. Variations in orthographic transparency may shape the manifestation of reading difficulties. This study was intended to help clarify the nature of developmental dyslexia in Spanish. Developmental dyslexic group (DD) were compared to two control groups, a chronological age-matched control group (CA) and a reading level-matched control group (RL). Measures included naming speed, verbal working memory (WM), phonological short-term memory (STM), phonemic awareness, and different reading subtests (letter, word and pseudoword reading, punctuation mark, reading skills). On the reading subtests, accuracy and reading speed were measured. Results demonstrated that developmental dyslexics show a severe deficit in lexical access on accuracy and speed measures, in addition to reading-related cognitive deficits in areas such as naming speed, verbal WM, phonological STM, and phonemic awareness. Hierarchical cluster analysis demonstrated that a subgroup of children with DD showed lower IQs and more severe reading-related cognitive deficits in naming speed, verbal WM, and phonological STM. Our results are consistent with studies conducted in the Spanish language and in other transparent orthographies.

Neuroimaging research has substantially enhanced our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of typical and atypical learning in children. These developments can advance the design of novel approaches to diagnosis and intervention for learning disabilities. Despite the promise of educational neuroscience, there are still walls between neuroscience and special education researchers such that more collaboration and understanding are needed between these disciplines. This chapter attempts to break down the walls by discussing how neuroimaging techniques can be incorporated into special education research. We also present arguments as to why neuroscience is “the next big thing” in special education research and the obstacles that must be overcome in order for neuroscience to be incorporated into education research. To describe how neurobiology might impact special education, we focus primarily on reading disability. We believe that educational neuroscience can aid in the identification and intervention of other learning disorders as well.

Cruelty has often been understood as the result of incurable bad character by those able to distinguish right from wrong. Recent research suggests a way of thinking about it as a form of disability in which people are unable to learn empathy, cognitive social skills and associated behaviour, which qualifies it as a form of learning disability. It is suggested that accepting this classification opens up the possibility that selected interventions might be successful in enabling people to understand, practise and appreciate affiliative behaviour.

Emotion regulation is an ongoing multiprocess phenomenon and is a challenging developmental task to acquire in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who have different neurobiological profiles and emotion regulation problems. The purpose of this paper is to review recent literature to understand the neurobiological and psychological perspective of emotion regulation in ASD, while converging themes of psychosocial interventions and existing best practices on emotion regulation within this heterogeneous population are reviewed and discussed in consideration of intellectual disability (ID).

Review of recent literature and common empirically supported interventions addressing emotional regulation implemented in individuals with and without ASD, and with and without ID were included in the electronic database search through PubMed, EBSChost, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, GALE and SAGE. Search terms used included autism, ID, cognitive control, executive function, sensory processing/intervention, emotion regulation, cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness, social stories, positive behavior support and behavior therapy.

Neural systems governing emotion regulation can be divided into “top-down” and “bottom-up” processing. Prefrontal cortex, cognitive and attentional control are critical for effective emotion regulation. Individuals with ASD, and with ID show impairments in these areas have problems with emotion regulation. Targeted psychosocial intervention need to consider bottom-up and top-down processes of emotion regulation, and that standardized interventions require adaptations.

There are limited studies looking into understanding the neurobiological and psychological perspective of emotion regulation in ASD and linking them to interventions. This review highlights psychosocial interventions that are important for further research, investigation and development as treatment in this population is limited.

Intellectual disabilities (ID) may complicate the experience of bereavement and loss, in those with communicative impairments compounded by complex healthcare needs and sensori-motor limitations. Whilst theorists have argued that the cognitive difficulties of people with profound ID impede mourning reactions, none have attempted to make sense of the responses they do exhibit. The current paper discusses this.

A select review considers the neurobiology underlying attachment bonds, complications in attachment formation and affect regulation in people with ID, and separation responses of people with profound ID.

The current paper demonstrates that by recognising the affective nature of separation distress, an understanding beyond a cognitive conceptualisation is possible.

It is worth questioning whether people with profound ID are incapable of any meaningful form of person permanence. A critical review could deal with this comparatively by drawing on research of person and object permanence in typically developing children.

Of specific interest, the bio-behavioural regulators of relationships may help us to appreciate the importance of routine physical health and social care for emotional wellbeing in this group.

It is argued that by appreciating the basic emotional and regulatory functions of relationships, we can achieve a greater insight into the loss experiences of people with profound ID that will offer therapeutic direction.

Assessment is at the core of high-quality education. When educators purposefully engage in assessment, the learning experiences and outcomes of all students, especially of students diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), are improved. In this chapter, we discuss assessment as unfolding within a framework that includes purposes, processes, and tools of assessment existing in the educational context. We open the chapter with an explanation of this framework. Then, in Part 1, we review the construct of SLD and detail how assessment is used within prominent approaches to diagnosis. In Part 2, we discuss how assessment is used to inform instruction before and after diagnosis. We ground our discussion in a vignette that follows Tess, a student who, at the beginning of third grade, has undiagnosed SLD in the area of reading. We show how educators at Tess's school collaborate in the purposeful use of assessment to inform instruction before and after Tess's diagnosis of SLD, highlighting traditional and innovative assessment techniques along the way.

This commentary accompanies Clare et al.’s study investigating psychotropic drug prescribing for adults with intellectual disability who were referred to specialist community learning disability teams in the east of England. The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the background to psychotropic drug prescribing for people with intellectual disability, review important contextual factors that influence prescribing decisions, and consider how we might make the best use of psychotropic drugs in this group.

Narrative summary and opinion, supported by reference to recent research literature.

Psychotropic drug use for people with intellectual disability raises complex issues, not least because of the lack of research evidence that exists on the topic. Psychotropic drugs can be an important part of treatment for people with mental illness but further research is needed to support prescribing for challenging behaviour. Medication optimisation is a framework within which individual preferences and values are considered alongside the evidence base and clinical judgement in order to inform safe, effective, and collaborative management decisions.

Prescribing decisions should be individualised and reviewed regularly, incorporating evidence from patients and carers. Improving the use of psychotropic medication requires concerted action, adequate social support, and the provision of alternative, non-pharmacological interventions that are acceptable and effective.

This paper reviews some of the current concerns about the use of psychotropic drugs and opens up new avenues of discussion.