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With inclusive research being an emerging field of interest, there is growing recognition that establishing collaborative relationships between researchers with and without ID entails specific demands. However, since studies on collaboration in inclusive research merely provide individual reports on experiences and challenges in one particular research project, building a shared knowledge base of concrete competencies considered important for those involved merits attention. This study contributes to a shared knowledge base in asking people with and without ID with (experiential) knowledge of inclusive research for competencies they consider important in collaborating in inclusive research in general, that is, without reference to a specific research project they participated in. Researchers with and without ID, coaches, policy makers, and teachers involved in the education of people with ID participated in this study. Data were collected from a focus group, individual interviews, and expert meetings. Qualitative analysis was carried out

immediately after each moment of data collection, providing the use of increasing insights in each consecutive phase of data collection. Participants describe that establishing collaborative relationships between researchers with and without ID in inclusive research requires the commitment of both parties. They mentioned concrete competencies they consider important for people with and without ID to collaborate in inclusive research in the categories: building a mutual relationship, communicating, achieving a collaboration in which everyone involved can contribute, being aware of skills and developmental needs, and being aware of impact. Clearly, describing competencies for people with and without ID is not intended to exclude anyone who does not possess these competencies from collaboration in inclusive research. However to avoid “tokenism,” this study might contribute to effective participation of people with ID in inclusive research in providing concrete competencies considered important in collaboration.

Persons living with visual impairments form a major group of people with various types of impairments in African countries. Little has been reported about the means and forms of information they seek to cope with their environment, and studies in Nigeria specifically, have not explored health information-seeking behaviour of visually impaired persons. This paper documents the health information-seeking behaviour of visually impaired persons (VIPs) in Ibadan Metropolis. A standardized questionnaire was administered to 200 VIPs sampled from two health facilities in Ibadan Metropolis. Most (66%) of the VIPs were partially sighted, 43% reported health issues as their most worrying challenge, while 20% reportedly had daily unmet health information needs. VIPs accessed information about medication for ailments from friends (45%), adopted herbal medication (50.5%) and /or indulged in selfmedication (21%). They reportedly had worse health (9.5%) status, while 4.5% reportedly remained worse off emotionally. The study concludes that VIPs considered health challenges and limited access to health information as their major concerns. Care for visually impaired persons should be incorporated in the primary healthcare routine and school health curriculum. Media programmes are also required to sensitise the general public about health information needs of VIPs.

Disability and the Global South, 2018 Vol.5, No. 1

Purpose: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong developmental disability characterised by difficulties in social interaction and social communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviour (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Despite its prevalence the world over, there is a paucity of research in some areas such as education, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper attempts to address the gap by exploring teachers’ understanding of ASD in Nigeria.

Method: Using an adapted version of the Knowledge About Childhood Autism Among Health Workers (KCAHW) questionnaire (Bakare et al, 2008), a survey was conducted among 177 mainstream primary teachers from Lagos State (112 from eleven urban schools and 65 from four rural schools).

Results: The total mean score on the Adapted KCAHW questionnaire among all the participating teachers was 10.81 ± 4.13 out of a possible total of 16. The mean score for urban teachers was 11.21 ± 4.31, while the mean score for rural teachers was 10.11 ± 3.75. In total, 46% of the urban teachers and 31% of the rural teachers demonstrated a generally accurate knowledge of ASD, with 15% (23 urban teachers and 4 rural teachers) of the sample answering all questions correctly.  Over 50% of urban teachers and almost 70% of rural teachers surveyed had only a low or moderate understanding of ASD.

Conclusions: This research supports previous studies that identified low professional knowledge and understanding of ASD, and a need for improved professional education and training. 

Limitations: The focus was on only one state within Nigeria, and only on mainstream primary schools. Further research is necessary across the educational age range as well as different geographical areas in the country.

Aim: This study attempts a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of un-annotated bibliographic listing of books and citations compiled on specific learning disability published by researchers in India.

Method: An online and offline survey covering ISSN journals and ISBN marked books available in print or electronic media was compiled, coded, categorized, and classified by title, theme, year, journals, and names of author/s.

Results: The bibliographic search yielded 450 research articles drawn from 196 national and international journals of Indian origin and 29 book titles on the topic of learning disability and/or its equivalents covering themes related to their nature-characteristic (N: 184; 40.89%), therapy-intervention (N: 115; 25.56%), causes-correlates (N: 57; 12.67%), screening-assessment-identification (N: 52; 11.56 %), and epidemiology-prevalence (N: 42; 9.33%).  A decade wise timeline analysis shows an increasing trend in the quantum of publications on learning disability by almost four times from the base years of <=1990s to the contemporary period, along with corresponding shift in the increased use of the term ‘learning disability’ in preference for other older terms (p:<0.05).  

Conclusion: On the whole, there seems to be much unused information available about learning disabilities in the country, which now lies widely scattered.

Limitations & Recommendation: Although no claim is made that the bibliographic listing is all inclusive, it is recommended that the first step is to have an information gathering mechanism, creation of a dynamic repository, or archival system with retrieval systems in place for prospective researchers on a subject matter of great importance  within the country. 

The ideology of Emancipatory Disability Research (EDR) reflected in the phrase ‘Nothing about us without us’, was first put forward in the 1990s. Although it aimed to place research control in the hands of the ‘researched’, i.e., people with disability, this rarely happens even today, 25 years later.

The Community Action Research on Disability (CARD) programme in Uganda embraced and modified the EDR approach, recognising the need for including people with disability in the research process from concept to outcome, and nurturing participation and collaboration between all the stakeholders in achieving action-based research. The research teams always included people with disability and staff from Disability People’s Organisations (DPOs) as well as academics and service providers. It endeavoured to generate and carry out research around issues that mattered to people with disability and their families. Leadership roles were assigned by team members. The objectives of the CARD programme were: (1) to fund teams to carry out action-based research on disability in Uganda; (2) to develop research and administrative capacity to manage the initiative within the academic registrar’s office at Kyambogo University; (3) to incorporate new knowledge generated from the studies into the ongoing local community-based rehabilitation and special education courses; and, (4) to ensure wide dissemination of research findings to all stakeholder groups.

CARD ran for 5 years, commissioning 21 action research studies in the field of disability and community-based services. This paper describes the process, presents the 12 completed studies, examines the extent to which the objectives were achieved and evaluates the experiences of the participating research teams, particularly in relation to the inclusion of its members with disability. It concludes with recommendations for future initiatives designed to promote validity, good value and inclusive approaches in disability research.

A social networking website for the disabled community. Members can join forums or groups or post blogs or videos. The MDM Club Business Membership is available for promotion of businesses (including charities and NFP) to the disability community

MHIN is a network  for the global mental health community to  communicate and share knowledge, experiences and resources to improve the quality and coverage of care. Provides searchable innovations and resources. The community area hosts blogs, podcasts, webinars and forums.

This guide is for specialists directly supporting autistic students. This may be as part of a disability support team within a Higher Education Institution (HEI), or for an independent organisation that provides services to HE. Insights from research and from good practice across Europe are shared to help improve student experiences and engagement with information and services, and to develop expertise.

The development of an inclusive pedagogy takes on new urgency in Norwegian schools as the student body has become increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse. Traditionally, the Norwegian school has been dominated by homogenising and assimilating discourses, whereas alternative voices have been situated at the margins. In response to this tendency, we present two transcultural students’ autoethnographic stories produced in alternative spaces to the Norwegian mainstream, that is, in a transition class for newly arrived students and on Facebook. Both spaces are perceived as contact zones in the sense that they are culturally and linguistically complex. This article illustrates how the students perform cultural and linguistic resistance towards dominant homogenising discourses as the transition class and Facebook seem to offer opportunities for constructing alternative stories. Moreover, we contend that these alternative stories offer important knowledge for conventional education contexts since they represent stories of competence in contrast to the assumed limitations of these students.