While the written word is an important means of communication among people, the technological revolution has increased the demands on mental processes involved in the processing of written information, which endangers the quality of life of people who have reading difficulties and are not completely functionally literate. Educational technologies have vastly improved in past decades, especially in the realm of aiding individuals with development and learning disorders. With these learning technologies becoming more mainstream, individuals struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy in everyday life now have a chance to overcome various barriers. Dyslexia and Accessibility in the Modern Era: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides emerging research on a literacy portal that offers the virtual background for the support and strengthening of reading skills and for leading the user while using the internet. The book also creates a tool based on user feedback with instructions on how to adapt current tools to meet the accessibility requirements for people with dyslexia. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as e-learning, lifelong learning, and neurodevelopment disabilities, this book is ideally designed for teachers, software developers, academics, researchers, students, and learning professionals.

Almost fifteen per cent of the world's population today experiences some form of mental or physical disability and society tries to accommodate their needs. But what was the situation in the Roman world? Was there a concept of disability? How were the disabled treated? How did they manage in their daily lives? What answers did medical doctors, philosophers and patristic writers give for their problems? This, the first monograph on the subject in English, explores the medical and material contexts for disability in the ancient world, and discusses the chances of survival for those who were born with a handicap. It covers the various sorts of disability: mental problems, blindness, deafness and deaf-muteness, speech impairment and mobility impairment, and includes discussions of famous instances of disability from the ancient world, such as the madness of Emperor Caligula, the stuttering of Emperor Claudius and the blindness of Homer.

Structured Discovery Cane Travel (SDCT) is an Orientation and Mobility (O&M) curriculum which focuses on the foundational techniques necessary to develop future independence for students who are blind or visually impaired. The ABCs of Structured Discovery Cane Travel for Children addresses essential non-visual concept development, techniques and mobility skills needed to travel efficiently, gracefully and safely within a myriad of natural environments while using the long, white cane with a metal tip as the primary mobility tool. This curriculum utilizes transformational knowledge and problem-solving opportunities through teachable moments to develop personal reflection and mental mapping which can be utilized post instruction. These students maximize their cognitive intrinsic feedback while completing everyday mobility tasks. Parents and instructors of children who are blind or visually impaired will comprehend the essentials of SDCT by reading The ABCs of Structured Discovery Cane Travel for Children; in addition, they will receive a treasure trove of O&M skill-building activities.

This book is about the social condition of Deaf people, told through a Deaf woman's autobiography and a series of essays investigating how hearing societies relate to Deaf people. Michel Foucault described the powerful one as the beholder who is not seen. This is why a Deaf woman's perspective is important: Minorities that we don't even suspect we have power over observe us in turn. Majorities exert power over minorities by influencing the environment and institutions that simplify or hinder lives: language, mindsets, representations, norms, the use of professional power. Based on data collected by Eurostat, this volume provides the first discussion of statistics on the condition of Deaf people in a series of European countries, concerning education, labor, gender. This creates a new opportunity to discuss inequalities on the basis of data. The case studies in this volume reconstruct untold moments of great advancement in Deaf history, successful didactics supporting bilingualism, the reasons why Deaf empowerment for and by Deaf people does and does not succeed. A work of empowerment is effective if it acts on a double level: the community to be empowered and society at large, resulting in a transformation of society as a whole. This book provides instruments to work towards such a transformation.

One message that comes along with ever-improving fertility treatments and increasing acceptance of single motherhood, older first-time mothers, and same-sex partnerships, is that almost any woman can and should become a mother. The media and many studies focus on infertile and involuntarily childless women who are seeking treatment. They characterize this group as anxious and willing to try anything, even elaborate and financially ruinous high-tech interventions, to achieve a successful pregnancy.

But the majority of women who struggle with fertility avoid treatment. The women whose interviews appear in "Not Trying" belong to this majority. Their attitudes vary and may change as their life circumstances evolve. Some support the prevailing cultural narrative that women are meant to be mothers and refuse to see themselves as childfree by choice. Most of these women, who come from a wider range of social backgrounds than most researchers have studied, experience deep ambivalence about motherhood and non-motherhood, never actually choosing either path. They prefer to let life unfold, an attitude that seems to reduce anxiety about not conforming to social expectations.

A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else. As a Deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness-much to the confusion of the world around her. While she cannot see well enough to operate without a guide dog or cane, she can see enough to know when someone is reacting to the visible signs of her blindness and can hear when they're whispering behind her back. And she certainly knows how wrong our one-size-fits-all definitions of disability can be. As a media studies professor, she's also seen the full range of blind and deaf portrayals on film, and here she deconstructs their impact, following common tropes through horror, romance, and everything in between. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history of the Deafblind experience, Being Seen explores how our cultural concept of disability is more myth than fact, and the damage it does to us all.

Including both theoretical discussions and practical information for congregational use or pastoral use, this rich, accessible book explores biblical text, historical and theological issues of disability, and examples of successful ministry by people with disabilities. Disability, Faith, and the Church: Inclusion and Accommodation in Contemporary Congregations draws from a range of Christian theologians, denominational statements, writings of people with disabilities, and experiences of successful ministries for people with disabilities to answer the deep need of many Christian communities: to live out their calling by welcoming all people. By focusing on 20th- and 21st-century thinkers and political and religious practices, the book outlines best practices for congregations and supplies practical information that readers can apply in classroom or church settings. The author draws on thinkers from a variety of Christian traditions-including Roman Catholicism, Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, and the Reform traditions-to provide a theologically robust discussion that remains accessible to churchgoers without formal theological training. Emphasis is placed on connecting formal theological reflection and the experiences of ordinary people with disabilities to existing congregational practices and denominational statements, thereby enabling readers to decide on the best ways to successfully include people with disabilities into their communities within the rich and diverse Christian theological tradition. Engages a wide range of theological traditions and writings on disability within the Christian tradition Provides disability-focused readings of biblical texts relevant to disability studies, both as ecclesial resources and for classroom use Profiles individuals who are engaged in active ministry and church leadership while living with disabilities Includes straightforward analysis of complicated social issues like disability and reproductive rights

Disability, Augmentative Communication, and the American Dream is a collaborative effort to tell the life story of Jon A. Feucht, a man who was born with a form of cerebral palsy that left him reliant on a wheelchair for mobility, with limited use of his arms and an inability to speak without an assistive communication device. It is a story about finding one's voice, about defying low expectations, about fulfilling one's dreams, and about making a difference in the world. Sociologist C. Wright Mills famously called for a "sociological imagination" that grapples with the intersection of biography and history in society and the ways in which personal troubles are related to public issues. Disability, Augmentative Communication, and the American Dream heeds this call through a qualitative "mixed-methods" study that situates Feucht's life in broader social context, understanding disability not just as an individual experience but also as a social phenomenon. In the tradition of disability studies, it also illuminates an experience of disability that avoids reading it as tragic or pitiable. Disability, Augmentative Communication, and the American Dream is intended as an analytical and empirical contribution to both disability studies and qualitative sociology, to be read by social science scholars and students taking courses in disability studies and qualitative research, as well as by professionals working in the fields of special education and speech pathology. Written in an accessible style, the book will also be of interest to lay readers who want to learn more about disability issues and the disability experience.