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Introduction: The National Disability Insurance Scheme is the new consumer-controlled funding system for people with disability in Australia, and is expected to enhance participation outcomes of people with disability. This research explored participation opportunities for people with disability during the formative period of transition to the scheme, through stakeholder accounts of changes in allied health service contexts.

Materials and methods: Qualitative data were generated during interviews, workshops and meetings with industry, policy, practice and education stakeholders involved in scheme services. Inductive coding explored key themes within the data. The International Classification of Functioning model was then applied as a deductive coding framework to illuminate how the scheme was perceived to be impacting participation opportunities for recipients of scheme funding.

Results and discussion: Using the International Classification of Functioning helped us illuminate whether changes resulting from scheme transition posed participation opportunities or barriers for scheme recipients. Research participants often framed these changes negatively, even when examples suggested that changes had removed participation barriers for scheme recipients. Some participants viewed changes as obstructing equitable and quality professional practice. We explore potential opportunities to resolve tensions that also optimise the participation outcomes of individuals who receive services through individualised funding.

Purpose: Stigmatisation can negatively affect opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to participate in society. Stereotyping, a first step in the process of stigmatisation, has been insufficiently explored for people with intellectual disabilities. This study examined the general public’s set of stereotypes that is saliently attributed to people with intellectual disabilities as well as the relationship of these stereotypes with discriminatory intentions and familiarity.

Materials and methods: A mixed-method cross-sectional survey within a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 892) was used. Stereotypes were analysed with factor analysis of a trait-rating scale, and qualitative analysis of an open-ended question. The relationship between stereotypes and discrimination as well as familiarity with people with intellectual disabilities was explored through multivariate analyses.

Results and conclusions: Four stereotype-factors appeared: “friendly”, “in need of help”, “unintelligent”, and “nuisance”. Stereotypes in the “nuisance” factor seemed unimportant due to their infrequent report in the open-ended question. “Friendly”, “in need of help”, “unintelligent” were found to be salient stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities due to their frequent report. The stereotypes did not relate to high levels of explicit discrimination. Yet due to the both positive and negative valence of the stereotypes, subtle forms of discrimination may be expected such as limited opportunities for choice and self-determination. This may affect opportunities for rehabilitation and might be challenged by protest-components within anti-stigma efforts.

Purpose: Explore managers’ experiences regarding employees with hearing impairments.

Materials and methods: Individual interviews with ten managers having employees with hearing impairment. The interviews were analyzed using Systematic text condensation.

Results: The managers felt great responsibility for their employees’ functioning, but hearing loss issues were easily forgotten. They found access to information as imperative to secure workplace adjustments, and temporary needs, rather than permanent ones, were easily met. Despite their challenging nature, meetings were not accommodated to meet hearing loss needs. Support in accommodation processes at the workplace was not requested since minor adjustments were perceived as sufficient.

Conclusion: The results show that there are barriers towards developing less strenuous working conditions for employees with hearing impairments. The implications of hearing loss should be recognized as risk factors for fatigue and treated accordingly. Appropriate services are necessary to support the stakeholders at the workplace and utilize the room for manoeuver in the accommodation process. Further studies should identify how such services can accommodate both the employees, and managers’ needs.

Purpose: The aim of was to identify and illustrate in what situations and with what qualities people with early RA experience participation in every day’s life.

Methods: Fifty-nine patients (age 18–63 years) were interviewed; 25 men and 34 women. Content analysis was used to identify meaning units that were sorted based on the type of situations described and later on, categories based on quality aspects of participation were developed.

Results: Participation was described as: 1. being part of a group, where a sense of belonging arose. 2. In doing activities with others for example at work or in leisure. 3. When sharing everyday chores and responsibilities for example in domestic duties. 4. When experiencing influence on actions such as when being asked for opinions on how to conduct a specific task. 5. When having the possibility to give direction of goals in rehabilitation, or elsewhere. 6. When sharing decision making and experiencing a high degree of influence in the situation.

Conclusions: Participation from an individual’s perspective is about belonging and having influence that mediates a positive feeling of being included and that you matter as a person. The results are important when using participation as a goal in clinical care. It is important to expand participation beyond the definitions in ICF and guidelines to include the patients’ socio-emotional participation in order to promote health.

Purpose: The aim was to identify and explore factors, which facilitate or hinder work participation for people with hearing impairment.

Materials and methods: In-depth interviews with 21 hearing impaired individuals of 32–67 years of age with a present or recent vocational affiliation were conducted. The analysis was conducted using a grounded theory approach.

Results: The analysis resulted in a conceptual framework of working life trajectories evolving through three phases of acknowledgement of hearing loss impact: the pre-acknowledgement, acknowledgement, and post-acknowledgement phase. The phases were influenced by the qualities of three contexts: the personal, the workplace, and the service provider. The qualities of the contexts, together with the amount of time spent in a pre-acknowledgement phase, formed the trajectories towards continuation of work participation or towards a disconnection. Accumulated risk factors constituted increased likelihood of disconnecting trajectories, while accumulated facilitating factors supported sustainable trajectories.

Conclusions: The results revealed a need for extended support at the workplaces, which includes the manager, colleagues, and professionals in the aim of preventing exhaustion and facilitate work participation among employees with hearing impairments. Joint action in facilitating communicative participation would share the responsibility for accommodation measures and broaden the room for manoeuver at the workplace.

Purpose: Reading and writing applications (with text-to-speech, TTS and speech-to-text, STT functions), used as assistive technology (AT) for students with reading difficulties are increasingly used in education, however, research has not sufficiently enough evaluated its potential. The purpose of this study was to explore how assistive reading and writing applications were perceived to function with regard to students’ possibilities to assimilate (i.e., “read”) and communicate (i.e., “write”) text.

Methods: Following a six-week app intervention, this follow-up survey contained 54 special education teachers’ perceptions of how the use of apps impacted student motivation, learning, and its usability in special education. A total of 59 students with reading difficulties from Grade 4, Grade 8 and from high school, were assessed. Analyses included quantitative and qualitative analyses of teachers’ responses and written material.

Results: The results showed individual differences in how teachers perceived app usage for text-interaction purposes, including how app usage affected student motivation and autonomy for text-based learning. Eighty-two per cent of the younger and forty-seven per cent of older students continued to use the technology after the intervention, but in various degrees.

Conclusions: Based on these findings, students with reading difficulties seem to be able to use AT in order to assimilate text (i.e., to read) and to communicate text (i.e., to write), and, thus, AT has the potential to promote participation in regular education. Future research should focus on how to customize assistive technology support in order to better utilize the potential.

This qualitative study explores Swedish case workers experiences of decision making regarding disabled children's right to obtain assistance in their everyday life whereby they can live independently in the community. Data collection included seven focus-group interviews and 11 complementary individual interviews with case workers from different agencies responsible for decisions regardig access to personal assistance. Grounded theory methodology was used. Compromised professional integrity under shifting conditions emerged as a main concern and maintaing professional integrity was used as an approach to resolve it. The case workers are maintaining professional integrity by applying different strategies; struggling with division of responsibility, bureaucratizig, and justifying and protecting. The results indicate that present application of assessment criteria in combination with the utilization of precedent rulings has made it difficult for the case workers to make decisions that provide children access to assistance. Current practice raises questions about the case workers perspectives of professionalism.

Purpose: Examining everyday challenges in the interactions between people with intellectual disabilities and their staff, as seen from the user’s perspective, is an important perspective in health care research. Involving people with intellectual disabilities as so-called co-researchers is a relatively unexplored research strategy. In this paper, co-researchers participated in all the steps of the research process, from planning to reporting, in addition to the written reporting of the findings. The aim of this study was to explore how people with intellectual disabilities experienced a filmed vignette of an everyday situation.

Method: Based on audio-recorded and transcribed individual and focus-group interviews with people with intellectual disabil- ities, performed by co-researchers with intellectual disabilities together with researchers, qualitative content analysis was used.

Results: The analysis reveals three themes: “being emotionally touched”, “being aware of the other”, and “being unclear”.

Conclusions: The results are discussed in light of normalization and participation in society with independence and one’s own decision-making. Regarding the care of people with intellectual disabilities, the main finding is the need to focus not only on greater involvement of this population in their own daily lives, but also to teach self-determination skills. Another finding is the importance of involving people with intellectual impairment as co-researchers.

Assistive technology (AT) is a powerful enabler of participation. The World Health Organization’s Global Collaboration on Assistive Technology (GATE) programme is actively working towards access to assistive technology for all. Developed through collaborative work as a part of the Global Research, Innovation and Education on Assistive Technology (GREAT) Summit, this position paper provides a “state of the science” view of AT users, conceptualized as “People” within the set of GATE strategic “P”s. People are at the core of policy, products, personnel and provision. AT is an interface between the person and the life they would like to lead. People’s preferences, perspectives and goals are fundamental to defining and determining the success of AT. Maximizing the impact of AT in enabling participation requires an individualized and holistic understanding of the value and meaning of AT for the individual, taking a universal model perspective, focusing on the person, in context, and then considering the condition and/or the technology. This paper aims to situate and emphasize people at the centre of AT systems: we highlight personal meanings and perspectives on AT use and consider the role of advocacy, empowerment and co-design in developing and driving AT processes.