This book explores what happens to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) when they reach adulthood. It provides an examination of various terms and definitions in use and a critical exploration of current UK policies. The author brings a wealth of many years' experience as a family carer, independent consultant and trainer to demonstrate the significant changes that a person-centred, specialised therapeutic and incremental approach can make to an individual's life. Advances in medical science mean more than ever, people with (PIMD) are growing into adulthood. What is this experience like for an adult who needs support in all aspects of their life? How do we include them in planning support when their intellectual disability means they cannot tell us first hand, what they want or need? Too often this group are overlooked or considered as an afterthought in policy and planning. Notions of independence, employment and mainstream inclusion are all problematic policy ideas for this group of people. Within one-size-fits-all service planning this focus means there is less capacity to meet their life-long specialist, complex and individualised needs. Understanding Profound and Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities in Adults is essential reading for anyone who is involved in the lives of adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, whether as a researcher, student, carer or policy-maker.

A presentation of research on disability in 2003, this text provides extensive coverage on the development of thinking cultures of disability; development of the social model of disability; disability and the politcs of social justice; and media treatement of disability, amongst other issues.

This book explores the economic situation of disabled people in developing countries focusing on rehabilitation and uses particpatory framework to community development. Although dealing specifically with a case study from Jordan, this needs assessment study provides comparisons with other developing societies. The author considers the prospect for future improvement in disability policy at a time when state budgets are already over stretched by widespread poverty, unemployment and poor health conditions. The book is divided into three parts. Part one explores disability and economic rehabilitation within global context and sets the scene for understanding what disability is and the impact of having disability across cultures with emphasis on the experience of discrimination. Part two deals with disability theory and practice in Jordan in terms of economic policies and provisions available for disabled people. Part three presents concluding remarks on the rise of disability politics in developing countries and the development of a participatory policy agenda.

Deaf adults and children, like their hearing counterparts, experience a full range of mental health problems. They develop psychoses, sink into deep depressions, abuse alcohol and drugs, commit sexual offenses, or simply have trouble adjusting to new life situations. But when a deaf client appears on the doorstep of an ordinary hospital, residential facility, clinic, or office, panic often ensues. Mental Health Care of Deaf People: A Culturally Affirmative Approach, offers much-needed help to clinical and counseling psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and other mental health professionals--and to their program administrators. The editors, a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and the authors, leading authorities with a variety of expertises, systematically review the special needs of deaf patients, particularly those who regard themselves as "culturally Deaf," and provide professionals with the tools they need to meet those needs. Among these tools is an extensive "library" of pictorial questionnaires and information sheets developed by one of the very few psychiatric units in the country devoted to the deaf. These handouts greatly simplify the processes involved in the diagnosis and treatment of people who in many cases are not good readers--for example, explaining medication and inquiring about side-effects. The handouts are reproduced on downloadable resources, to enable purchasers to print out and use copies in their work. This comprehensive clinical guide and its accompanying downloadable resources constitute vital resources for all those who seek to provide sensitive, effective mental health care to deaf people.

First published in 1999, this volume examines the inclusion of disabled children as a category of children in need under the Children Act 1989 and as eligible for assessments of need under the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 has drawn renewed attention to the plight of these children and their families. This book presents the findings from a study of parents whose child has cerebral palsy. The research undertaken at the cost of social policy change focuses on the apparent gap between the well-argued proposals for community care and the experiences of carers. A bewildering picture emerges of inadequate services and treatments from the health, education and social services in the public, voluntary and private sectors. Parents experience isolation and stress as they explore ways to improve the quality of their children's lives by experimenting with unregulated and under-researched treatments for an incurable physical condition. The conclusion that there has been deterioration in provision for these families is a serious indictment on current social policy direction.

Solomon's startling proposition in "Far from the Tree" is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter.
All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges.
Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, "Far from the Tree" explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life.

This book promotes a positive message for people with Down syndrome across the world. Living with Down Syndrome is a positive experience for the majority of children and adults with Down syndrome, and for their families. Of course there are difficulties to be faced, but quality of life, from infancy to old age, is determined more by the quality of healthcare, education and social inclusion offered to individuals, than by the developmental difficulties that are associated with Down syndrome.

The aim of this book is to bring the latest information on research and good practice to families, practitioners and policy makers in order improve the services available to individuals with Down syndrome in all countries.

Dyslexia is a condition that is widely misunderstood in the world of work.

Adult Dyslexia: A Guide for the Workplace shows why small and large employers should be aware of European laws on anti-discrimination and dyslexia. It provides practical advice on how to identify dyslexics in the workplace, how to create the right environment for them to thrive and how organizations can make the transition from a framework that perceives dyslexia as a problem to one that perceives it as a solution.

Throughout the book, real-life case studies illustrate the points being made and a number of invaluable practical resources are available including an appendix of useful organizations, an adult dyslexia screening check list and a seven-step procedure for counselling adult dyslexics.

Gary Fitzgibbon and Brian O'Connor have varied and extensive experience of both advising organizations on adult dyslexia issues and providing assessment, counselling and training services to adult dyslexics. Their book is an essential resource for disability specialists, occupational psychologists, counsellors, HR managers, teachers/lecturers of adults and importantly, dyslexics and their families.

Offering readings of a range of fictional and biographical texts, including work by Richard Selzer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gaston Leroux, Willa Cather, Natalie Kusz, and Lucy Grealy, this book examines reactions to facially disfigured people on the basis of Emmanuel Levinas' ethics of the face. Drawing on Levinas' concern with the holistic dimension of the face as an encounter with the other's "whole person" and the sense of moral obligation that this instils in us-a sense that disfigurement disrupts by drawing our attention to the disfigurement as a "spectacle" and threatening to limit our view of that individual-the author explores how we react to the facially disfigured and how we ought to react.

Media representation of and for the disabled has been recharged in recent years with the expansion of new media worldwide. Interactive digital communications--such as the Internet, new varieties of voice and text telephones, and digital broadcasting--have created a need for a more innovative understanding of new media and disability issues. This engaging analysis offers a global perspective on how people with disabilities are represented as users, consumers, viewers, or listeners of new media, by policymakers, corporations, programmers, and the disabled themselves.

The deaf world is a complex one, divided by the allegiance of some to Deaf Culture, which emphasizes communication by sign-language, and by others to oralism, which emphasizes speech as the primary means of communication, and still others to a program called Total Communication, which stresses both signing and speaking. Today, more and more deaf people, especially children, are choosing oralism because it helps them fit into mainstream society better. This work presents interviews with fourteen extraordinary oral deaf role models from diverse backgrounds and professions. Wall Street banker Ralph Marra, paralegal Kristin Buehl, 1984 Olympic gold medalist Jeff Float, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, engineer George Oberlander, university mathematics professor Dr. David James, law professor Bonnie Poitras Tucker, executive Carolyn Ginsburg, foundation head Mildred Oberkotter, architect Tom Fields, accountant and institute executive director Ken Levinson, finance manager Michael Janger, school administrator Kathleen Suffridge Treni, and teacher Karen Kirby tell of their experiences and stories, discuss what helped and what hindered them, and offer advice to parents of deaf children. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

bThe detailed study of learning disability features rarely in university courses. To a large extent this reflects the low value attributed by our society and its human services to people with learning difficulties. This unusual book, based on one of those rare courses, includes contributions from academic specialists, students and people with learning difficulties, all of whom have participated in the course. Its 'social approach' challenges the very idea of what should be taught about the subject of learning disability and who should teach it.
Learning Disability - A Social Approach looks at how people's lives are affected by human services. It covers specific policy and service issues, different aspects of working with people and key debates. The unique insights gained from the combination of academic knowledge and real life experience make it a topical and thought-provoking text for anyone involved with learning disability - student, teacher, professional or policy maker.

bThe detailed study of learning disability features rarely in university courses. To a large extent this reflects the low value attributed by our society and its human services to people with learning difficulties. This unusual book, based on one of those rare courses, includes contributions from academic specialists, students and people with learning difficulties, all of whom have participated in the course. Its 'social approach' challenges the very idea of what should be taught about the subject of learning disability and who should teach it.
Learning Disability - A Social Approach looks at how people's lives are affected by human services. It covers specific policy and service issues, different aspects of working with people and key debates. The unique insights gained from the combination of academic knowledge and real life experience make it a topical and thought-provoking text for anyone involved with learning disability - student, teacher, professional or policy maker.

In recent decades, record numbers of Jews are taking a newfound interest in their legal heritage - the Bible and the Talmud, the law codes and the rabbinical responsa literature. In the course of this encounter, they may be interested in how these sources relate to the issue of disability, and the degree to which halakhic attitudes to disability are in harmony with contemporary sensibilities. For example, can the blind or those in wheelchairs serve as prayer leaders? Need the mentally incompetent observe any ritual law? Is institutionalization in a special-education facility where Jewish dietary laws are not observed permitted if it will enhance a child's functioning? And how are we to interpret teachings that seem inconsonant with current sensibilities?
Disability in Jewish Law answers the pressing need for insight into the position of Jewish law with respect to the rights and status of those with physical and mental impairments, and the corresponding duties of the non-disabled.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203219511

Being Disabled, Becoming a Champion is an accessible presentation of current European research on the most recent evolutions in sports for people with disabilities, demonstrating knowledge developed from the field of sports practices of people with disabilities. It covers three interrelated themes. First, it covers the different facets of the history of sports organizations set up during the 1950s for athletes with motor or intellectual impairments. The second part focuses on the athletes themselves. Voices are given to the top-level athletes in adapted sports: people with intellectual impairment; the pioneers of wheelchair racing who invented a new discipline, off-road wheelchair racing; and a former Paralympic athlete who has become a researcher and a defender of specific sports practices. Finally, the third part interrogates the way support for disabled people can modify the existing definitions and conceptions of the body, of disability, of what is human, and of sports performance. This is an ideal text for students and researchers studying and working in the areas of Disability Studies, Sport Sciences and Paralympic Studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Anti-Racist Practice (ARP), Anti-Discriminatory Practice (ADP) and Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) form a trinity of concepts, nested into one another, which have evolved in welfare services over the last fifteen years. They tend to have developed as forms of practice panaceas and as a result have been subject to both unrealistic expectations and, at times, to political ridicule. This book clarifies the distinctions between three key concepts - ARP, ADP and AOP. Critically and constructively analysing these three approaches to practice it reappraises their potential in the light of emerging equality issues in the health service
With contributions from leading teachers and practitioners in the field, Equalising Opportunities provides students and practitioners in health and social care with a clear overview of an area where there is much confusion and imperfect understanding.

This book provides an account of the social cognitive development of children with learning disabilities and discusses ways in which this might be related to their social adjustment. Research shows that children with learning disabilities may experience social and emotional as well as cognitive difficulties. The book provides an overview of research in this area and, with the use of various models, examines aspects of social functioning. Applications of research to educational and other more general settings are discussed, as are implications for the design of intervention strategies.

Contents:
Introduction 1. Antiquity; Attitudes of the Bible; Classical Antiquity; Causes of blindness; Blindness and guilt; The blind seer; Ate 2. The Blind in the Early Christian World; The healing of the blind; Blindness and revelation; the story of Paul; A concluding observation 3. The Middle Ages; The Antichrist; Allegorical blindness; The blind beggar; The blind and his guide 4. The Renaissance and its Sequel; The blind beggar; Metaphocial blindness; The revival of the blind seer; Early secularization of the blind; The blind beggar in the seventeenth century 5. The Disenchantment of Blindness: Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles

This volume honors the founder of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities (IARLD), William M. Cruickshank, and his many accomplishments. His influence on special education in general, and learning disabilities in specific, is evident throughout the world. Consistent with his international activities, the contributors to this book represent nine different countries. The chapters reflect a range of perspectives on "the state of the art" in learning disabilities, documenting both commonalities and differences across countries. Taken together, the chapters provide a comprehensive and informative picture of learning disabilities.

A unique work that brings together a number of specialist disciplines, such as archaeology, anthropology, disability studies and psychiatry to create a new perspective on social and physical exclusion from society. A range of evidence throws light on such things as the causes and consequences of social exclusion stigma, marginality and dangerousness.
It is an important work that breaks down traditional academic disciplinary boundaries and brings a much needed comparative approach to the subject.

In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed by the US Congress, eliciting much debate. In this work, leading philosophers, legal theorists, bioethicists and policy makers look into the philosophical and moral foundations of disability law and policy.
Americans with Disabilities is a thought-provoking analysis of one of the United States' most controversial laws.

Praise for Serious Mental Illness and the Family "Serious Mental Illness and the Family is unique in building assessment, intervention, and collaborative strategies around specific types of clinical cases and life scenarios. The book will be an invaluable aid to mental health professionals working with severely ill clients and their families." —Harriet P. Lefley, PhD Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences University of Miami School of Medicine "Dr. Marsh is very knowledgeable about families, yet is also very compassionate in her approach to the experience of families who are frequently traumatized by a mental illness in a family member. Professionals who work with families of people with mental illness will find [this] book extremely helpful in their work.…a rich source of information." —LeRoy Spaniol, PhD Executive Publisher, The Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal "Dr. Diane Marsh has given the mental health field yet another brilliant resource.…any psychiatric service provider can pick up this book and immediately find useful strategies for commonly occurring communication difficulties in both the initial interview and ongoing therapeutic interactions." —Mary D. Moller, MSN, ARNP, CS CEO, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Nurses, Inc. "[A] timely and important work…enriched with dozens of case vignettes, useful strategies, and profound insight. The writing is crystal clear, approachable, and engaging with satisfying depth and detail. Dr. Marsh is able to translate contemporary family theory content and new ideas into meaningful principles of practice for helping the spouses and partners, children, siblings, and other family members of people with severe mental illness." —Kia J. Bentley, PhD, LCSW Associate Professor, School of Social Work Virginia Commonwealth University

Technology has attracted an increasing level of attention within studies of disability and disability rights. Many researchers and advocates have maintained skepticism towards technology out of the fear that technology becomes another way to 'fix' impairments. These skeptical views, however, contrast with a more positive approach towards the role that technology can play in eliminating barriers to social participation. Legal scholarship has started to focus on accessibility and accessible technology and in conjunction with the recently adopted United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has put a great emphasis on accessibility, highlighting the role that accessible technology plays in the promotion and protection of the rights of people with disabilities. Against this background, this book gathers together different contributions that focus on enhancing the production, marketing and use of accessible technology. Building upon previous academic studies and in light of the UNCRPD, accessible technology is considered a tool to increase autonomy and participation. Overall, this book attempts to show, through a multifaceted and inter-disciplinary analysis, that different regulatory approaches might enhance accessible technology and its availability. This title was previously published as a special issue of the International Review of Law, Computers & Technology.

Feminist Perspectives on Disability provides a unique introduction to the key debates in relation to both feminism and disability. The author considers contemporary similarities, differences and contentious areas and how concepts drawn from postmodern feminism can be usefully applied to the disability arena. The book explores many important aspects of the field, including: biological debates; issues of power, knowledge, equality, difference, subjectivity and the body; interface of public and private/care and community; medical and social barriers; politics, citizenship and identity. Feminist Perspectives on Disability will be compulsory reading for students of all levels in Women's Studies, Gender Relations, Social Policy, Social Work/Social Care and social Science.