Disability and Children as Begging Guides: For how Long Shall Children be Used as Begging Guides by Visually Impaired Persons in Africa?

This study examines the effect of using children as begging guides by people with sensory disabilities in Africa. It argues that in some African countries, visually impaired persons, especially parents and relatives, have devised the strategy of abusing their children or someone very close to them as begging guides for financial gain. While this strategy has remained a recurrent problem with severe social, economic, political, and legal implications, scientific research on addressing these implications is scarce. Given this, the article examines the rationale for using children as begging guides, its effects on the children and visually impaired parents, and mitigation strategies against abuse of children as begging guides in Africa. The qualitative research design based on key informant interviews (KIIs) complemented social exclusion and childhood theoretical underpinnings of the study. Results from (KIIs) showed that poverty, religion, cultural beliefs, financial profiteering, poor governance, breakdown in policy implementation against begging are among the rationale why children are abused and used as begging guides. The results also showed that these children experience low academic performance in school, harassment, psychological trauma, health complications from laborious trekking. At the same time, their visually impaired parents suffer from regrets and guilt of not being able to provide good parental care to their children. It concludes that good rehabilitation, vocational programmes, and prompt government supports for people with sensory disabilities would lessen the abuse and use of children as begging guides in Africa.

The Intersection of Disability, Diversity, and Domestic Violence: Results of National Focus Groups

Using data from two national focus groups of 19 key informants, this article explores the unique issues faced by people with physical and sensory disabilities in accessing help for domestic violence, with a particular emphasis on the experiences of people of color with disabilities. In addition, this study explores the programmatic preferences of people of color with disabilities in seeking help in regards to domestic violence, and assesses the cultural competence, disability awareness, and domestic violence awareness of domestic violence service providers and disability organizations.

Framework for the Classification of Emotions in People With Visual Disabilities Through Brain Signals

Nowadays, the recognition of emotions in people with sensory disabilities still represents a challenge due to the difficulty of generalizing and modeling the set of brain signals. In recent years, the technology that has been used to study a person’s behavior and emotions based on brain signals is the brain–computer interface (BCI). Although previous works have already proposed the classification of emotions in people with sensory disabilities using machine learning techniques, a model of recognition of emotions in people with visual disabilities has not yet been evaluated. Consequently, in this work, the authors present a twofold framework focused on people with visual disabilities. Firstly, auditory stimuli have been used, and a component of acquisition and extraction of brain signals has been defined. Secondly, analysis techniques for the modeling of emotions have been developed, and machine learning models for the classification of emotions have been defined. Based on the results, the algorithm with the best performance in the validation is random forest (RF), with an accuracy of 85 and 88% in the classification for negative and positive emotions, respectively. According to the results, the framework is able to classify positive and negative emotions, but the experimentation performed also shows that the framework performance depends on the number of features in the dataset and the quality of the Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is a determining factor.

Disability Self-Worth and Positive Personal Meaning in Disability: Correlates of Hope Among U.S. Residents With Physical Disabilities

Research is beginning to indicate that positive disability identity is associated with positive psychosocial outcomes among people with disabilities. Personal disability identity (PDI) refers to self-concept as a person with a disability. Two studies were conducted to examine (a) the psychometric properties of new PDI subscales and (b) the association between the new subscales and hope, a cognitive motivational construct. In Study 1, the author examined the structural validity and internal consistency of recently developed measures of PDI (i.e., disability self-worth and personal meaning in disability) in a sample of 247 adults with physical and sensory disabilities. In Study 2, the author examined the association between the two PDI subscales and hope (i.e., pathways and agency) in a subsample of 147 U.S. residents. In Study 1, internal consistency of all instruments was supported and confirmatory factor analyses supported the structural validity of the PDI subscales in a sample representing a broader disability subgroup than the original measurement development study, which had exclusively examined adults with visual impairment and blindness (Zapata, 2019). In Study 2, findings from hierarchical linear regression indicated that scores on disability self-worth and personal meaning were significantly and positively associated with hope scores ( p < .001), after accounting for demographic and disability characteristics. Study 1 found preliminary evidence to support the use of two new PDI subscales (i.e., disability self-worth and personal meaning) in academic research among adult U.S. residents with physical and sensory disabilities. Study 2 introduced disability self-worth and personal meaning as predictors of hope. Given prior research on the relationship between hope and positive adjustment among people with disabilities, these findings contribute to the emerging literature on the predictive role of disability identity in positive life outcomes among adults with disabilities.