Background: This study aims to introduce direct support staff (DSS) working with adults with intellectual disabilities to the Holistic Support Model (HSM) and assess its influence on their perceptions of their professional role. The HSM, grounded in humanistic principles, guides the support process, prioritising autonomy and meaningful living.…

Reasonable accommodations (RA) for children with special educational needs (SEN) need to be decided in collaboration with all stakeholders. Even though parents play a crucial part in the inclusive school trajectory or their child with SEN, they often miss a clear role in this decision-making process. In this research, using interpretative…

Background: Parents with learning disabilities are often assessed as lacking the capacity to parent effectively; however, ecological models of parenting indicate that support from informal social networks (ISNs) can help them successfully maintain family life. This systematic review examined evidence regarding (1) parent and child outcomes…

Background: Individuals with intellectual disability have deficits in postural balance and mobility. This study aimed to explore the effect of listening to music on postural balance and mobility in individuals with intellectual disability. Method: Ten participants with intellectual disability and 10 participants with typical development performed…

In 1997, the United States Agency for International Development established a policy focused on including people with disabilities in its development efforts. For the past two decades, this initiative has been echoed globally, yet research on its effectiveness remains limited. This study revisits a previous 2015 analysis by examining the language…

Background: There is a strong ethical case and an urgent need for more participatory research practices in disability research but a lack of resources to support this. It is important to involve people with learning disabilities and carers at all stages, including when designing training for co-research. Methods: We co-developed training materials…

Background: The experiences of students and professionals with disabilities are routinely excluded from scholarly and policy debates about equity in engineering. Emergent research suggests that engineering is particularly ableist, yet systematic accounts of the possible exclusion and devaluation faced by engineers with disabilities are largely…

A review of 29 juried journal articles from 2009-2022, among other sources, found that autistic students face numerous systemic barriers to success in postsecondary settings. Despite autistic students being academically prepared, many are not persisting and completing a postsecondary program. Major findings from the literature include the benefits…

To aid in the development of a globally competitive workforce, federal policymakers have expressed the priority of preparing students and adults with disabilities to succeed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Yet, no research has examined the extent to which information-processing, literacy, numeracy, and…

In 1974, the Education for all Handicapped Protection Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford. This law which was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990, established a federal entitlement to special education for eligible students with disabilities. In 1982 and again in 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court…

Young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are vulnerable to transportation challenges which can contribute to a lack of community engagement. This article describes findings from a qualitative study in which we conducted one time, semistructured interviews with nine individuals with IDD (ages 18--25) and their…

This study sought to increase understanding on barriers to securing academic employment met by people with disabilities. Lindsay and Fuentes [2022. "It is Time to Address Ableism in Academia: A Systematic Review of the Experiences and Impact of Ableism among Faculty and Staff." "Disabilities" 2 (2): 178-203] pointed out the…

Our team was awarded a grant by a private organization in partnership with a local research network to examine disparities in the special education referrals and services provided to young children in New York City (NYC). Our convergent mixed-methods study is exploring how the NYC preschool ecology--consisting of "process,"…

This qualitative study focused on educators' perspectives of teaching students with dysgraphia. Dysgraphia can be referred to as a specific learning disorder (SLD) in writing and includes difficulties with handwriting, spelling, and/or composition skills. To explore the educators' experiences, an interpretative phenomenological analysis method was…

Difficult life circumstances can make anyone vulnerable. For example, families of children with special needs are at risk, as are families facing other stressful circumstances, such as poverty or parental mental illness. This article builds on previous action research by Plavcak (2020) and introduces a new research problem. We conducted a…