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Background: This study focuses on the positioning of gender, sexual orientation and people with disabilities in the linguistic landscapes of two selected South African universities, which are located in the Western Cape province.

Objectives: This study aims to answer the question: How are power relations depicted through linguistic landscaping in the universities?

Methods: Given that there is minimal empirical data in this field, the researcher approached this question by exploring the way in which sexual orientation and people with disabilities are perceived, via the modal resources used in the categorisation of toilet users at the institutions. Specifically, toilet signage was observed as there were only a few other signage or forms of support (such as ramps and lifts – some of which may seem disability-unfriendly in terms of space) and acknowledgement in other places at the institutions for people with disabilities. Data (signs, images, texts, billboards and posters) were collected by means of photography. The interpretive paradigm was used to determine the choice of methodology: critical discourse analysis and multimodality. These were also used to thematically analyse the collected data.

Results: Findings revealed that sexuality, as well as subtle inequality, unfortunately remain unravelled areas in South Africa’s higher institutions of learning. In addition, the degenderisation of people with disabilities appears to be prevalent at the institutions, although this may not necessarily be reflective of practices at all higher education institutions in South Africa.

Conclusion: Nonetheless, the examined results are stimulating indicators of hegemonic and preferred practices in public places. They also depict the obtainable dissimilar scales and imbalances in society, which are not addressed may impede other authentic and ongoing measures of social integration and advancement.

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Purpose: Employment of young adults with chronic physical conditions entering the labor market after finishing post-secondary education remains behind compared to typically developing peers. The aim of this study is to evaluate changes in their paid employment levels after following a vocational rehabilitation intervention (‘At Work’).

Materials and methods: Participants aged between 16 and 27 years (n = 90) were recruited via rehabilitation physicians and a jobcoach agency and participated in a vocational rehabilitation program. Cochran’s Q and McNemar tests served to test the development of intervention participants’ paid employment over time. Chi-square tests were used to compare intervention participants’ paid employment level with national reference data selected on age and having a self-reported chronic physical condition.

Results: Paid employment level of the intervention cohort significantly increased from 10.0% at baseline to 42.4% at 2-years follow-up (p < 0.001). At 2-years follow-up, their employment rates approached the employment rates of national reference data (42.4% versus 52.9%, p = 0.17).

Conclusion: Starting from a disadvantaged position, the paid employment rate of the intervention cohort substantially increased over time, approaching the employment rate of reference data. ‘At Work’ seems to be appropriate for supporting this specific group who face obstacles to enter the labor market, to find competitive employment.

Aim: Many children with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries do not attend school and one-third are out of school. In order to ensure that education is for all including children with disabilities, research is needed on barriers to schooling to identify targets for intervention. The study will examine the determinants of school achievement among persons with and without disabilities as well as among each type of impairment.

Methods: The study will utilize data from a recent national, representative household survey on living conditions among persons with and without disabilities. The individual level data used in this article comprise 2123 persons with and 2000 persons without disabilities.

Results: The results show that an alarmingly high proportion of persons in Nepal have not accessed formal education, with access being significantly lower among persons with disabilities. While the results may be influenced by the assumed relationship between disability and poverty, results from analyzing the cross-sectional data cannot be conclusive on the influence of disability vs. poverty in determining differences in access and school attainments. Increased environmental barriers, higher age, rural location, and increased levels of disability were found to be associated with lower educational achievement. Pronounced differences in access to education were found between impairment types, with individuals with physical impairments achieving the highest level and individuals with multiple impairments, hearing and mental impairments achieving lowest.

Conclusions: It is necessary both to strengthen the entire educational sector and at the same time allocate resources that will ensure that all children are on board and that particular efforts are implemented to cater for those who are easily side-lined.

Purpose: To find modifiable factors that are related to subjective well-being would be valuable for improving interventions in fibromyalgia. Physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness may represent potential areas to optimize treatment regimens. In fibromyalgia, there is a discordance between clinical observations and patient-reported outcomes (objective and subjective assessments). Therefore, the present study aims at analyzing the associations of objective and subjective evaluations of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness with subjective well-being and determine if and how objective and subjective associations differ.

Methods: In this population-based cross-sectional study participated 375 women with fibromyalgia from the al-Ándalus project (Spain). Physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and physical fitness were objectively (accelerometers and performance testing) and subjectively (questionnaires) measured. Participants self-reported their levels of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction.

Results: In the most conservative multivariate analysis, we found independent associations of the objective measures of physical activity with positive affect and life satisfaction and sedentary behaviour with positive affect. No such relationship was seen with subjective measures of the same behaviours. Moreover, we observed that objective and subjective physical fitness evaluations were independent of each other related to subjective well-being.

Conclusions: Independent associations of the objective measures (but not the subjective assessments) of physical activity with positive affect and life satisfaction, and of sedentary behaviour with positive affect were observed. However, objective measures and subjective appraisals of physical fitness appear to be independently related to well-being, which should be considered when developing physical exercise interventions for fibromyalgia.

Background: People with spinal cord injury (SCI) often have great need for healthcare services, but they report access challenges. Primary care access to people with SCI has not been explored in Botswana.

Objective: This study aimed to identify barriers and facilitators that users with spinal cord injuries experience in accessing primary care services in the greater Gaborone area, Botswana.

Methods: A quantitative, cross-sectional, observational study was conducted. Data were collected with a structured questionnaire from 57 participants with traumatic and non-traumatic SCI. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed.

Results: The male to female ratio was 2.8:1. The mean age of participants was 40 years (standard deviation 9.59). Road traffic crashes caused 85% of the injuries. Most participants visited primary care facilities between 2 and 10 times in the 6 months before the study. Participants were satisfied with the services (63%) and felt that facilities were clean (95%) and well maintained (73.5%). Preferential treatment, respect, short waiting times and convenient hours facilitated satisfaction with services. Availability was hampered by insufficient provider knowledge on SCI as indicated by 71.9% of participants, and shortage of consumables (80.7%). Structural challenges (42.1% could not enter the facility by themselves and 56.5% could not use the bathroom) and lack of height-adjustable examining couches (66.7%) impeded accessibility. Cost was incurred when participants (64.9%) utilised private health services where public services failed to address their needs.

Conclusion: Primary care services were mostly affordable and adequate. Availability, acceptability and accessibility aspects created barriers.

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Purpose: Albinism in Tanzania causes fierce stigmatisation. Although various stigma reduction interventions (SRI) are employed, research on their effectiveness is lacking. This research aimed to develop a tool to measure albinism-related social stigma among high school students in Tanzania. Cultural equivalence was tested for the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue Community Stigma Scale (EMIC-CSS) and Albinism Social Distance Scale for Adolescents (ASDS-A) assessing conceptual, item, semantic, operational and measurement equivalence.

Methods: The methods used were workshops, in-depth interviews, translation and re-translation, discussions, a test (n=337) re-test (n=142) of the survey, and follow-up focus group discussions (n=25).

Results: The Scales have proven to be adequate on all equivalences other than measurement equivalence. The reproducibility statistics raise questions that can be explained by characteristics of the sample.

Conclusion and Implications: The analysis provides insights for further validation of the Scales, contributes to the discussion about a universal stigma measurement tool and demonstrates the importance of validation studies of existing and proven tools used in a different context.

Purpose:  The predominant mode of human communication is speech, and whenever it is hindered, humans resort to the tactile-kinaesthetic mode.  Use of sign language by persons with speech-hearing impairments is a classic example of such adaptation. The Demonstration School at the Regional Institute of Education in Mysuru, South India, undertook training of typically-developing students in Indian Sign Language (ISL), so as to facilitate communication and instruction of students with hearing impairment who are in mainstream learning environments. 

Method: Training in ISL was imparted to140 typically-developing students in higher primary classes. Twenty-four 40-minute sessions were conducted over a month. After theoretical orientation in logical bases of manual communication, practical training commenced with elementary manual alphabets, progressed through essential daily-life vocabulary necessary to construct simple sentences and carry out general conversations, and culminated in signing the Indian National Anthem.

Results: Typically-developing students gained primary benefits such as improved awareness about non-verbal communication modes, mastery of basic skills in ISL, and positive attitudes towards sign languages.

Conclusion: The UNCRPD 2006 authorises sign language as the linguistic identity of the Deaf, and encourages the use of sign language in learning environments. Future research should add to the findings on secondary benefits in the form of scholastic and sociometric advantages derived by students with hearing impairments who receive instructions in sign language in mainstream learning environments.

Purpose: There is very little demographic or prevalence data  regarding persons with disabilities in Ethiopia, let alone data on more in-depth factors such as access to services or quality of life. This study aimed to find out about the current quality of life of persons with disabilities in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia.

Method: The WHO CBR Indicator Survey was used to measure quality of life, and the Washington Group Short Set was included to allow disaggregation of the data by different types of functional limitations. Interviews were conducted with 966 persons with disabilities in 10 towns in SNNPR. The majority of data collectors were persons with disabilities themselves.

Results: People with disabilities who were surveyed generally regarded their health as good (65.9%). Very few had significant levels of education (16.5% were completing higher education). Only 6.7% were working for wages and 45.2% were reportedly working on their own account. Hardly any of them (2.9%) stated that their money was sufficient for their needs. Only a small group (38%) felt valued in their community. Just over half of the respondents (56.6%) were members of a Disabled Persons’ Organisation (DPO) or any other self-representing group.

Conclusion: Persons with disabilities scored relatively or extremely low in all areas of life measured with the CBR Indicator Survey (health, education, livelihood, social and empowerment). The survey will be repeated after a few years in the same communities to measure changes over time, and persons without disabilities will be included in order to draw comparisons.

Implications: Public and private organisations in SNNPR need to become more accessible and inclusive of persons with disabilities so as to improve their quality of life.

Purpose: The main objective of this paper was to assess environmental accessibility for people with vision, hearing and speech disabilities in Mongolia, with particular focus on public buildings and public transportation.

Methods: A standardised internationally-used questionnaire, consisting of 29 questions, was used for the accessibility of public buildings assessment.  The questionnaire results were grouped into categories and descriptive statistics were obtained. To determine quality and accessibility to public transportation a standardised sheet, consisting of 51 questions from the internationally accepted SERVQUAL, was used. This model is commonly used for measurement of the discrepancies between actual performance and customer expectations.

Result: Assessment of public buildings in Mongolia revealed that they were moderately accessible for people with vision, hearing and speech disabilities. The assessment of public transportation found that the discrepancy between actual performance and customer expectation is the highest across all indicators for people with hearing and speech impairments.

Conclusion: The research findings indicated a strong need to pay closer attention to the current environmental unfriendliness and inaccessibility faced by people with vision, hearing and speech disabilities.