The two volume set LNCS 9758 and 9759, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, ICCHP 2015, held in Linz, Austria, in July 2016. The 115 revised full papers and 48 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 239 submissions. The papers included in the second volume are organized in the following topics: environmental sensing technologies for visual impairments; tactile graphics and models for blind people and recognition of shapes by touch; tactile maps and map data for orientation and mobility; mobility support for blind and partially sighted people; the use of mobile devices by individuals with special needs as an assistive tool; mobility support for people with motor and cognitive disabilities; towards e-inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities; At and inclusion of people with autism or dyslexia; AT and inclusion of deaf and hard of hearing people; accessible computer input; AT and rehabilitation for people with motor and mobility disabilities; HCI, AT and ICT for blind and partially sighted people.

From workplace accidents to polio epidemics and new waves of immigration to the returning veterans of World War II, the first half of the twentieth century brought the issue of disability-what it was, what it meant, and how to address it-into national focus. Out of the Horrors of War: Disability Politics in World War II America explores the history of disability activism, concentrating on the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped (AFPH), a national, cross-disability organization founded during World War II to address federal disability policy. Unlike earlier disability groups, which had been organized around specific disabilities or shared military experience, AFPH brought thousands of disabled citizens and veterans into the national political arena, demanding equal access to economic security and full citizenship. At its core, the AFPH legislative campaign pushed the federal government to move disabled citizens from the margins to the center of the welfare state. Through extensive archival research, Audra Jennings examines the history of AFPH and its enduring legacy in the disability rights movement. Counter to most narratives that place the inception of disability activism in the 1970s, Jennings argues that the disability rights movement is firmly rooted in the politics of World War II. In the years immediately following the war, leaders in AFPH worked with organized labor movements to advocate for an ambitious political agenda, including employer education campaigns, a federal pension program, improved access to healthcare and education, and an affirmative action program for disabled workers. Out of the Horrors of War extends the arc of the disability rights movement into the 1940s and traces how its terms of inclusion influenced the movement for decades after, leading up to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Anna Ott died in the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane in 1893. She had enjoyed status and financial success first as a physician's wife and then as the only female doctor in Madison. Throughout her first marriage, attempts to divorce her abusive second husband, and twenty years of institutionalization, Ott determinedly shaped her own life. Kim E. Nielsen explores a life at once irregular and unexceptional. Historical and institutional structures, like her whiteness and laws that liberalized divorce and women's ability to control their property, opened up uncommon possibilities for Ott. Other structures, from domestic violence in the home to rampant sexism and ableism outside of it, remained a part of even affluent women's lives. Money, Marriage, and Madness tells a forgotten story of how the legal and medical cultures of the time shaped one woman-and what her life tells us about power and society in nineteenth century America.

When confronted with the large amount of research about the autism spectrum one can be forgiven for believing that every conceivable aspect has been studied. However, despite the abundance of research, there still remains several autism topics that are not yet comprehensively understood. Addressing Underserved Populations in Autism Spectrum Research: An Intersectional Approach highlights five areas of autism spectrum research that currently lack a substantial body of literature. These include, autistic seniors, autistic women, fathers raising autistic children, autistics with intellectual disabilities, and autistics from ethnic minorities. Bennett and Goodall explore each area, offering explanations for why they have been overlooked in the existing literature and recommendations and strategies for further research to help us better understand these parts of the autistic community. They also explore and address systemic racism within the autism research community and explain strategies that scholars can use to conduct research that is both respectful of autistics and methodologically rigorous. Readers will gain an understanding of some of the gaps in our knowledge about the autism spectrum and will obtain the tools needed to conduct robust and appropriate research that addresses these gaps.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals develop their identities within environments that convey and reinforce preconceived assumptions of disability and of deafness, thereby encouraging particular ways of accommodating individuals' hearing status. These assumptions ultimately influence the evolution of their identities and in turn their psychological well-being. This notion is particularly important within societies that frame deaf or hard-of-hearing persons as living in a "prison of silence" (a metaphor the media uses frequently when extolling the virtues of cochlear implants) or which view them in one-dimensional perspectives-- rather than recognizing that there are many ways to be deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Many factors, some ever-present and some that have emerged in recent years, impact the unique identities of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals today. These factors, which are explored in A Lens on Deaf Identities, include explanatory paradigms that frame how deaf and hard-of-hearing people are understood within the context of disability and sociolinguistics; the relatively recent formal recognition of a Deaf culture and the emergence of bicultural frames of reference; the appearance of deaf identity theories in the psychological literature; the influence of families and schools, historical and social contexts; the acknowledgement of diversity in this population; and the technology that affects the identity of deaf people in potentially unexpected ways (e.g., cochlear implants as bionic ears, telecommunications that bring deaf people together with each other as well as with hearing people, and advances in genetics with implications for parental decision-making about hearing status and the acceptability of hearing differences). This book uses personal experiences, theoretical formulations, and research data to examine interfaces within and between each of these areas and how the tensions emerging at these junctures influence deaf and hard-of-hearing identity formation in complex, multifaceted ways that defy pervasive stereotypes of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. A Lens on Deaf Identities will appeal to students and professional researchers in deaf studies and deaf education, as well as those interested in identity formation in the presence of "disability."

The role of disability and deafness in art Distressing Language is full of mistakes-errors of hearing, speaking, writing, and understanding. Michael Davidson engages the role of disability and deafness in contemporary aesthetics, exploring how physical and intellectual differences challenge our understanding of art and poetry. Where hearing and speaking are considered normative conditions of the human, what happens when words are misheard and misspoken? How have writers and artists, both disabled and non-disabled, used error as generative elements in contesting the presumed value of "sounding good"? Distressing Language grows out of the author's experience of hearing loss in which misunderstandings have become a daily occurrence. Davidson maintains that verbal confusions are less an aberration in understanding than a component of new knowledge. Davidson discusses a range of sites, from captioning errors and Bad Lip Reads on YouTube, to the deaf artist Christine Sun Kim's audiovisual installations, and a poetic reinterpretation of the Biblical Shibboleth responding to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Deafness becomes a guide in each chapter of Distressing Language, giving us a closer look at a range of artistic mediums and how artists are working with the axiom of "error" to produce novel subjecthoods and possibilities.

A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn't fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

Social inclusion is often used interchangeably with the terms social cohesion, social integration, and social participation, positioning social exclusion as the opposite. The latter is a contested term that refers to a wide range of phenomena and processes related to poverty and deprivation, but it is also used in relation to marginalized people and places. This book consists of two parts: the first aims to review the domestic and international historical roots and the conceptual base of disability, as well as the expressions of social exclusion of people with disabilities that interfere in their efforts to exercise their rights in society. It offers a comprehensive review of social and legal approaches to social exclusion and inclusion. The second part introduces and analyzes domestic and international social and legal strategies to promote social inclusion for people with disabilities. The closing chapter highlights the role of morality, law, science, and media and technology in achieving inclusion.

First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare's revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation. With a poet's devotion to truth and an activist's demand for justice, Clare deftly unspools the multiple histories from which our ever-evolving sense of self unfolds. His essays weave together memoir, history, and political thinking to explore meanings and experiences of home: home as place, community, bodies, identity, and activism. Here readers will find an intersectional framework for understanding how we actually live with the daily hydraulics of oppression, power, and resistance. At the root of Clare's exploration of environmental destruction and capitalism, sexuality and institutional violence, gender and the body politic, is a call for social justice movements that are truly accessible to everyone. With heart and hammer, Exile and Pride pries open a window onto a world where our whole selves, in all their complexity, can be realized, loved, and embraced.

Since the enactment of P.L. 94-142, the predecessor legislation to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), in 1975, the federal government has played a prominent role in encouraging the principle of educational equality for children with disabilities through a permanent, broad-scale federal assistance program. The IDEA is a grants statute that provides federal funding for the education of children with disabilities and requires, as a condition for the receipt of such funds, that states agree to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE; i.e., specially designed instruction provided at no cost to the parents that meets the needs of a child with a disability) to every eligible child. The transition from high school to the workforce can be a challenging time for students, and particularly for those with disabilities who may need additional services or guidance to achieve their goals. Studies have found that some employers are reluctant to hire people with disabilities, due, for example, to their perceptions about the costs of accommodations or the work capacity of people with disabilities. Studies have also found that many individuals with significant disabilities have been employed in sheltered workshops, where they are segregated from other employees and may be paid less than minimum wage.

Deaf and Hearing Siblings in Conversation is the first text to consider both deaf and hearing perspectives on the multi-dimensional dynamics of their adult sibling relationships. Deaf and hearing authors, Berkowitz and Jonas, conducted individual open-ended interviews with twenty-two adult sibling dyads or triads, using ASL and spoken English, to access subject's intimate thoughts and experiences. The book documents how the 150 year history of educational decisions and society's attitudes became imbedded in sibling bonds, transforming their lives and identifies and how the siblings' lives were impacted by choices their parents made about how to communicate with the deaf family member. Authors weaved interview selections, personal narratives and fictionalised stories throughout the text revealing attitudes toward American Sign Language, the various roles deaf and hearing siblings take on as monitors, communication facilitators, sibling-signers and sibling-interpreters which illustrate how lifelong bonds are impacted by these roles. A major feature is its analysis of how isolation impacts deaf and hearing sibling relationships. The text presents numerous examples of how these siblings formulated creative tools, devised unique strategies and engaged in deep conversations to alleviate isolation and to relieve the tensions within their families and the hearing world in which they co-exist.

Making Rights a Reality? explores the way in which disability activists in the United Kingdom and Canada have transformed their aspirations into legal claims in their quest for equality. It unpacks shifting conceptualizations of the political identity of disability and the role of a rights discourse in these dynamics. In doing so, it delves into the diffusion of disability rights among grassroots organizations and the traditional disability charities. The book draws on a wealth of primary sources including court records and campaign documents and encompassing interviews with more than sixty activists and legal experts. While showing that the disability rights movement has had a significant impact on equality jurisprudence in two countries, the book also demonstrates that the act of mobilizing rights can have consequences, both intended and unintended, for social movements themselves.

Many people are shocked upon discovering that tens of thousands of innocent persons in the United States were involuntarily sterilized, forced into institutions, and otherwise maltreated within the course of the eugenic movement (1900-30). Such social control efforts are easier to understand when we consider the variety of dehumanizing and fear-inducing rhetoric propagandists invoke to frame their potential victims. This book details the major rhetorical themes employed within the context of eugenic propaganda, drawing largely on original sources of the period. Early in the twentieth century the term 'moron' was developed to describe the primary targets of eugenic control. This book demonstrates how the image of moronity in the United States was shaped by eugenicists. This book will be of interest not only to disability and eugenic scholars and historians, but to anyone who wants to explore the means by which pejorative metaphors are utilized to support social control efforts against vulnerable community groups.

This book examines Japanese cultural beliefs about disability and related socialization practices as they impact the experiences of elementary school-aged children. Physical and mental conditions which impair children's functioning are universal issues impacting child welfare and educational systems around the world. While the American approach is well understood and represented in the literature, cultures differ in which physical and mental conditions are considered 'disabling'. Currently, the Japanese educational system is in transition as public schools implement formal special education services for children with developmental disabilities. 'Developmental disabilities' is a new term used by Japanese educators to categorize a variety of relatively minor social and cognitive conditions caused by neurologically based deficits: learning disabilities such as dyslexia, ADHD, and Asperger's Syndrome. Children who were once considered 'difficult' or 'slow learners' are now considered to be 'disabled' and in need of special services. This transition created an excellent opportunity to explore Japanese beliefs about disability that might otherwise have remained unexamined by participants, and how these evolving beliefs and new socialization and educational practices impact children's experiences.

Bioethics and Disability provides tools for understanding the concerns, fears and biases that have convinced some people with disabilities that the health care setting is a dangerous place and some bioethicists that disability activists have nothing to offer bioethics. It wrestles with the charge that bioethics as a discipline devalues the lives of persons with disabilities, arguing that reconciling the competing concerns of the disability community and the autonomy-based approach of mainstream bioethics is not only possible, but essential for a bioethics committed to facilitating good medical decision making and promoting respect for all persons, regardless of ability. Through in-depth case studies involving newborns, children and adults with disabilities, it proposes a new model for medical decision making that is both sensitive to and sensible about the fact of disability in medical cases.

The only textbook to outline the skills social workers need to conduct effective client interviews, this volume synthesizes recent research on interviewing and demonstrates its value in unique settings and with a variety of clients and issues. Connecting evidence-based approaches to the quality of practitioner-client relationships and the achievement of different objectives at each phase of the interview, the text shows students how to apply their learning systematically and develop specialized techniques for culturally competent interviewing and challenging client situations. For this fifth edition, the authors have updated the text's research throughout and have adopted a more coherent chapter organization for teaching. The volume also includes new sections on breaking bad news and interviewing with aged, racial/ethnic, and sexual minority populations. Revised vignettes reflect the challenges practitioners now face in the field and represent the interests of diverse students and scholars.

Using data from more than 40,000 soldiers of the Union army, this book focuses on the experience of African Americans and immigrants with disabilities, investigating their decision to seek government assistance and their resulting treatment. Pension administrators treated these ex-soldiers differently from native-born whites, but the discrimination was far from seamless - biased evaluations of worthiness intensified in response to administrators' workload and nativists' late-nineteenth-century campaigns. This book finds a remarkable interplay of social concepts, historical context, bureaucratic expediency, and individual initiative. Examining how African Americans and immigrants weighed their circumstances in deciding when to request a pension, whether to employ a pension attorney, or if they should seek institutionalization, it contends that these veterans quietly asserted their right to benefits. Shedding new light on the long history of challenges faced by veterans with disabilities, the book underscores the persistence of these challenges in spite of the recent revolution in disability rights.

This book explores the possibilities and limitations re-theorizing disability using historical materialism in the interdisciplinary contexts of social theory, cultural studies, social and education policy, feminist ethics, and theories of citizenship.