Quality of life is a multidimensional construct requiring self-determination and advocacy skills, employment, and recognition of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms for improvements to be made. In this study, the constructs of quality of life and self-determination were applied to the rights-based framework guaranteed by the recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (UNCRPD) to inform monitoring and implementation efforts. Persons with disabilities interested in advocacy from Nepal, Zambia, and the United States were surveyed. Significant country differences were found in ratings of quality of life, self-determination, and personal human rights, but similar low ratings in country support of human rights were found. Through the coordinated improvement of significant factors, this study supports quality of life as a useful measure for informing UNCRPD. Future research should focus on the applicability of quality of life to monitoring UNCRPD and policy and program development.
Purpose: This study aimed to assess the implementation of an online parent training programme in Bangladesh, designed to enhance parental knowledge of autism and neurodevelopmental disorders and related interventions. In addition, study participants were expected to become “Master Trainers” with the intention of training other parents in their local communities.Method: This survey study assessed parental knowledge and programme effectiveness, such as potential online learning barriers, cultural sensitivities, and general course content feedback after each unit.Results: The programme had an 81% completion rate (with parents completing all but one unit) with an average programme knowledge score of 86%. Parents felt that the course content was moderately difficult, the length of the units was appropriate, and the units were culturally sensitive. They requested more detailed lessons, specific case studies, and adaptation of the curriculum for older children.Conclusion: The pilot programme merits the next phase of development, which includes local adaptation and translation. However, the findings are limited by the small sample size.
In this manuscript, we discuss research findings from a collaborative visual arts curricular unit on ableism, which we implemented in non-Disability Studies undergraduate courses at two universities during the 2012-2013 academic year. Our project builds on previous research in which we (Derby, 2015, in press;Karr & Weida, 2013)
The purpose of this study was to use photovoice—a participatory action research methodology that allows participants to leverage the creative medium of photography to capture their ‘lived experience’—among Syrian refugees living in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. The study found that participants (children and adolescents between the ages of 8 and 18 years) demonstrated a remarkable number of resilience strategies (88 per cent) at multiple levels (individual, family, school and community). Resilience was demonstrated through their interactions with nature to seek solitude and solace, family connections, school, friends, accomplishments and their broader community. A smaller number of participants spoke of topics related to trauma and loss (12 per cent). The study demonstrates the usefulness and viability of photovoice in capturing the fears, wants and wishes of vulnerable populations as well as strategies employed by them in the face of adversity. As such, it is a potentially powerful tool for empowerment, raising awareness and promoting social change.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.