Children with disabilities in Eastern Africa face significant barriers to access education: a scoping review

Adugna, Molalign B.; Ghahari, Setareh; Merkley, Sheila; Rentz, Kelly

doi:10.1080/13603116.2022.2092656

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 26 publications

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“…There are variations in educational trajectories for people with disabilities in Africa, and students with disabilities in African settings are often denied education or have their education delayed because of many factors (Engelbrecht et al 2016;Okyere et al 2019;UNESCO 2019). For example, despite active governmental efforts in Tanzania, difficulties still exist between rhetoric and reality (Adugna et al 2022;Braun 2020), and many students with disabilities are either not in school or have less than optimal experiences. In low-income African nations, young people with disabilities can be confronted with several potential problems in adapting to their impairments (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delays in Education and Leadership for Youth with Disabilities: Lessons from the TamTam Project

Kesah,

Che,

Junior

et al. 2024

African Journal of Disability

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delays in Education and Leadership for Youth with Disabilities: Lessons from the TamTam Project

Kesah,

Che,

Junior

et al. 2024

African Journal of Disability

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Use of an intelligent tutoring system for a curriculum on augmentative and alternative communication: Feasibility for implementation

Dada,

Flores,

Bastable

et al. 2024

Intl J Lang & Comm Disor

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BackgroundOver 8 million children with disabilities live in Africa and are candidates for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), yet formal training for team members, such as speech–language therapists and special education teachers, is extremely limited. Only one university on the continent provides postgraduate degrees in AAC, and other institutions provide only short modules at an undergraduate level. The need for an introductory training course on AAC that is accessible by university students continent‐wide was identified. An online programme, namely an intelligent tutoring system (ITS), was identified as a possible option to facilitate interactive learning without the need for synchronous teaching. The use of an ITS is shown to be effective in developing knowledge and clinical reasoning in the health and rehabilitation fields. However, it has not yet been applied to student teaching in the field of AAC.AimTo determine both the feasibility of an ITS to implement an AAC curriculum for students in four African countries, and the usability and effectiveness of such a system as a mechanism for learning about AAC.Method & ProceduresThe study included two components: the development of a valid AAC curriculum; and using the ITS to test the effectiveness of implementation in a pre‐ and post‐test design with 98 speech–language therapy and special education students from five universities.Outcomes & ResultsStatistically significant differences were obtained between pre‐ and post‐test assessments. Students perceived the learning experience as practical, with rich content.Conclusions & ImplicationsThe findings suggest that the ITS‐based AAC curriculum was positively perceived by the students and potentially offers an effective means of providing supplementary AAC training to students, although modifications to the system are still required.What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subject Professionals typically lack formal training in AAC. In Africa, this presents a serious challenge as there are over 8 million children who are candidates for AAC. A need for an introductory training course on AAC, which can be accessed by university students continent‐wide, was identified.What this paper adds to existing knowledge An AAC curriculum was developed and integrated into an ITS, an online programme allowing interactive learning through asynchronous teaching. Students from four African countries completed the AAC ITS curriculum. The curriculum was positively received by the students and statistically significant changes in knowledge were identified.What are the practical and clinical implications of this work? This feasibility study shows that the use of an ITS is an effective means of providing AAC training to university students in these African countries. The results provide a valuable contribution toward ensuring the equitable distribution of AAC training opportunities in the African context. This will have a significant positive impact on those who are candidates for AAC.

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Numeracy skills learning of children in Africa:—Are disabled children lagging behind?

Zhang

Holden

2023

PLoS ONE

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Significant progress has been achieved in universal basic education in African countries since the late 1990s. This study provides empirical evidence on the within- and across-country variation in numeracy skills performance among children based on nationally representative data from eight African countries (DR Congo, The Gambia, Ghana, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Togo, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe). We assess whether and to what extent children with disabilities lag in numeracy skills and how much it depends on their type of disabilities. More specifically, we explore whether disabled children benefit equally from better school system quality. The assessment is analysed as a natural experiment using the performance of non-disabled children as a benchmark and considering the different types of disabilities as random treatments. We first evaluate the variation in average numeracy skills in the eight African countries. They can roughly be divided into low- and high-numeracy countries. We apply Instrumental Variable (IV) methods to control the endogeneity of completed school years when assessing subjects’ school performance and heterogeneous disability effects. Children with vision and hearing disabilities are not especially challenged in numeracy skills performance. The low numeracy skills among physically and intellectually disabled children are mainly attributable to their limited school attendance. Children with multiple disabilities are constrained both by low school attendance and by poor numeracy skills return to schooling. The average differences in school performance across the high- versus low-numeracy skill country groups are larger than the within-group average differences for disabled versus non-disabled kids. This indicates that school enrolment and quality are crucial for children’s learning of numeracy skills, and that disabled children benefit equally from better school quality across these African countries.

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Children with disabilities in Eastern Africa face significant barriers to access education: a scoping review

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Delays in Education and Leadership for Youth with Disabilities: Lessons from the TamTam Project

Delays in Education and Leadership for Youth with Disabilities: Lessons from the TamTam Project

Use of an intelligent tutoring system for a curriculum on augmentative and alternative communication: Feasibility for implementation

Numeracy skills learning of children in Africa:—Are disabled children lagging behind?

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