Social Institutions for Preventing Suicidal Behavior of Adolescents

Research relevance: socialization includes all the processes of communication with culture, upbringing and education, thanks to which a person gets the opportunity to participate in public and social life. The whole environment of a person is involved in the process of socialization: family, neighbors, peers in children's institutions, schools, the media, etc. Research objectives: thus, we identified such requirements for the components of socialization, the specifics of the content of socialization tasks inherent in adolescence, and the level of personal development of adolescent students in accordance with the requirements of modern society. Research materials and methods: general medical interventions include treatment aimed at eliminating the somatic and neurological consequences of suicide attempts and preventing disability. Research results: reconstruction of the education system and public education will be successful only if it is the work of the whole society. Conclusions: it is important to focus all social life, social-cultural environment, education and training system on the younger generation.

Perspectives on Disabilities in Sierra Leone

Most disability research originates from high-income countries, masking important cultural variability in how disability is conceptualized. Through 199 interviews with people living in Sierra Leone, we investigated the following research questions: (1) what are the experiences of community members with people with disabilities?; (2) what employment options or other resources are available for people with disabilities?; and (3) how do community members perceive people with disabilities? We used a mixed-method approach to data analysis by quantitizing the qualitative responses to further examine whether participants’ responses differed by urbanicity, age, or level of education. The results of this study provide insight into how disability is understood in a low-income country and reveal important directions for future research.

The Future of Positive Psychology and Disability

For much of the history of the application of psychology to disability, the research and clinical focus of the field was deficits-oriented: documenting what people with disability could not do, proposing theories of why they could not do these things, creating measures to assess this incapacity and incompetence, and building interventions and treatments predicated on disease and pathology. It has been only in the last few decades that conceptualizations of disability allowed for consideration of strengths and positive attributes along with the presence of disability and only in the past two decades that a positive psychology of disability has emerged. This article will briefly summarize the factors that led to the emergence of a focus on the positive psychology of disability and a strength-based approach in the field, examine the state of knowledge and practice as it pertains to the positive psychology of disability, and will examine challenges that serve as barriers to progress in this area and opportunities for advancement. Among these is examining how “optimal human functioning” can be understood in ways that includes, and not excludes, people with disability. The importance of shifting the disability research and practice focus to emphasize flourishing, well-being, and self-determination of and for people with disability will be discussed, as well as the necessity for the field of positive psychology to more aggressively reach out to include people with disability among those populations whom the field values and includes.

Building a culture of engagement at a research centre for childhood disability

Background Engaging patients and family members as partners in research studies has become a widespread practice in healthcare. However, relatively little has been documented about what happens after the research study ends. For example, is patient and family engagement embedded in the wider infrastructure of organizations, and if so how? What are the long-term effects of engaging parents on research teams on the culture of how research is conducted? This study seeks to address these two gaps by examining how a culture of family engagement has been built over time at CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Methods This study is based on ethnographic research methodology and combines elements of organizational ethnography, interviews, and collaborative auto-ethnography with parent partners, researchers, staff, and trainees. Results Since the inception of CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster University in 1989, parents have been involved in research studies. Over time, this involvement evolved from being consulted on research studies to undertaking decision-making roles as partners and most recently as co-principal investigators. A growing infrastructure fosters a community of engagement that goes beyond the individual research study, and often beyond CanChild. This infrastructure consists of training, knowledge mobilization and social networking. In addition, the “softer” building blocks of CanChild’s culture of engagement are an openness to learning from others, a commitment to relationship building, and a drive to grow and improve. These values are espoused by the leadership and are instilled in the next generation of researchers to inform both research and clinical work. While some challenges should be acknowledged when researchers and family partners work together on research studies, we identify a number of strategies that we have used in our studies to foster authentic and meaningful family–researcher partnerships. Conclusion Engaging patients and families as partners in research constitutes a culture shift in health research, whereby studies about patients and families are carried out with them. Developing a community of engagement that transcends an individual research study is a step towards creating a culture of research that is truly shaped by the people about whom the research is being done.

ON THE ORIGIN AND DISABILITY PREVENTION

There is an asymmetry in the disability research. Much more research is devoted to the problems of living conditions of people with disabilities and the instruments of their support and activation. Prevention of accidents, injuries and chronic diseases leading to disability is less researched. The article indicates that research on disability prevention should be multidisciplinary and based on the life course and settings (place of living) approach, preferably with the use of longitudinal observation. Correspondingly to this proposal, examples of studies meeting the author's suggestions are noted, as well as the guidelines of WHO and other specialized organizations on the use of developed definitions, creating national databases and mobilizing stakeholders for participation in adequate data collection process at international level.

Embodied difference in manhood : A sociological analysis of the intersection of visible physical impairments and manhood among Xhosa men in the Eastern Cape

In this thesis, I outline possible answers to the question of what it means to be a Xhosa man living with a visible physical impairment. Drawing on 17 one-on-one in-depth interviews and through an interpretive phenomenological thematic analysis, this thesis explores the intersection of physical disabilities and manhood masculinity in Xhosa men in selected rural areas in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The intention for this study is to better our understanding concerning the creation, negotiation, maintenance, and recreation of manhood identities by traditionally circumcised Xhosa men in the Eastern Cape who by birth, accident, or illness find themselves at the intersections of masculinity and physical disability. Research notes that the bodies of men with disabilities serve as a continual reminder that they are at odds with the expectations of the dominant manhood cultures. The main argument from this area of research is that men with disabilities are outside the hegemony because they undermine the normative role and shape of the body in Western cultures. However, this line of argumentation stands in sharp contrast to arguments that the hegemony in Xhosa manhood masculinity is primarily and conclusively achieved by having a traditionally circumcised penis without any consideration of the full embodiments of men. Therefore, this study, in the first instance, seeks to bring embodiment into the analyses of manhood by focusing on physical disability amongst traditionally circumcised Xhosa men. Through an embodied theoretical approach to their disabilities that accounts for the corporeal experience of impairment, and theories of masculinity that centre the context, this thesis establishes, in the first instance, the significance of embodiment in doing Xhosa manhood. Concerning the research aims and objectives, this study sheds light on what it means to be a Xhosa man living with visible physical impairment. In this regard, the original findings are classified according to each research aims and objective, as outlined below. Concerning the first research aim, I found that the participants struggle to speak about their bodies outside of physical labour/work despite their impairments. I explain their inability to talk about their disabled bodies by looking at traditional Xhosa initiation as a grantor of equality and sameness. Secondly, I argue that there is a higher premium on social bodies rather than physical bodies in this context, thus their inability to speak about their conditions. Lastly, I make connections between the participants’ inabilities to talk about their bodies and the lasting impact of colonial and apartheid histories. Concerning the second research aim, I explore ways and strategies they employ to respond to and negotiate Xhosa manhood masculinity's dominant cultural demands. In this regard, I note that the participants who acquired their impairments after initiation consider their disability as a second initiation because they see it as having set them back to square one regarding their manhood responsibilities. In contrast, the participants who acquired their disabilities post-initiation saw initiation as a gateway to a more respectable personhood status. I also note that there is an emergence of alternative Xhosa manhood masculinities. Lastly, I also found that contrary to western scholarship on disability and manhood, the participants distinguish between threatened manhood identity versus threatened status as a man. I outline how they arrive at this distinction. In terms of researching the last research aim, this thesis explores how the participants negotiate their ‘embodied difference’ in mundane everyday living. I explore their taken-for-granted routines in doing and being disabled Xhosa men every day. In this regard, this study presents original and interesting findings regarding sex and intimacy, social interactions and sociability, and everyday home living.

De-Masking deafness: Unlearning and Reteaching Disability During a Pandemic

In academic writing about disability, the impetus is typically used to subvert society's ableist structures and challenge misconceptions and misunderstanding around disability. However, due to the world-wide spread of COVID-19 and the restrictions put in place to reduce the virus's impact, such as asking people to wear masks in public places and the closing of universities and moving to entirely online learning, the author, who is deaf, found herself vulnerable and confronting a lack of access due to these measures. This reflexive paper will investigate how the pandemic and its effects forced the author to reconsider her ownership of her deafness. It will add to a growing body of autoethnographic disability research by contributing another facet to understandings around disability and self as they are actualized in the midst of the pandemic.

Non-Invasive Brain–Computer Interfaces: Development and Rehabilitation for Motor Disability

Around 61 million people in the United States suffer from different forms of disability; of these, 13.7% suffer from a motor disability. Research in brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) has focused on curbing communication disabilities due to motor impairment. Many challenges and future developments lie ahead in the BCI world. The research on paradigms that guide the way to make communication easy for a person with motor impairment is the pillar of the BCI system. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the developments in non-invasive brain–computer interface and evaluate them. The authors discuss components of the BCI system and how it is formed. Neurofeedback based on different modalities is also analyzed. The results from initial studies have been successful, but paradigms and neurofeedback technologies have immense development potential, which can change the face of BCI systems for rehabilitation of motor disability.

Madhouse

Until the very end of the twentieth century the history of learning difficulties was subsumed into other histories, of psychiatry, of special education and, indeed, of disability. Initiatives to enable people with learning difficulties and their families to record their own histories and contribute to the historical record are both recent and powerful. Much of this work has been led or supported by The Open University’s Social History of Learning Disability Research (SHLD) group and its commitment to developing “inclusive history.” The article tells the story of the Madhouse Project in which actors with learning difficulties, stimulated by the story of historian activist Mabel Cooper and supported by the SHLD group, learned about and then offered their own interpretations of that history, including its present-day resonances. Through a museum exhibition they curated, and through an immersive theatre performance, the actors used the history of institutions to alert a wider public to the abuses of the past, and the continuing marginalization and exclusion of people with learning difficulties. This is an outstanding example of history’s potential to stimulate activism.