History Of Disability Research Articles

Cultural assimilation of adult Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Effect modification by religiosity and sex on the relation between cultural adversities and common mental health disorders.

In this study, we aimed to explore the prevalence and determinants of common mental health disorders (CMHDs, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD], depression, and anxiety) in Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Specifically, we examined how the associations between cultural adversities (discrimination, unemployment, and separation from family) and CMHDs are modified by levels of religiosity and sex. Between March and June 2017, a cross-sectional study was conducted targeting adult Arab Syrian refugees residing in Beirut and Southern Lebanon. Eligibility criteria comprised being a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-registered Syrian refugee residing in Lebanon, 18 years and older, and having no history of mental disorder or physical disability. A total of 191 refugees agreed to participate and complete a battery of six questionnaires. Exposures were measured using a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Postmigration Living Difficulties Checklist, the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire, and the Belief into Action Scale, while outcomes were measured using the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 and the Depression and Anxiety Scale-21 Items. Half (50.3%) of our sample had high PTSD risk, 73.8% had high depression risk, and 73.8% had high anxiety risk. Stratified analysis revealed religiosity and sex to be effect modifiers of the associations between cultural adversities and CMHDs. Specifically, cultural adversities were only significantly associated with CMHDs in the low religiosity stratum and males. Only unemployment was a significant risk factor for PTSD in both males (OR = 4.53, 95% CI [1.44, 14.27]) and females (OR = 2.77, 95% CI [1.14, 6.74]). Religiosity and sex are effect modifiers of the associations between cultural adversities and CMHDs. Religious and spiritual interventions in mental health care should be adopted in refugee settings. Moreover, there is an urgent need for capacity-building initiatives addressing social determinants of mental health among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Beyond Hannah Takagi Holmes: The Lives and Work of Deaf and Blind Japanese Americans

Abstract Although disability history has made progress in including excluded groups, such as LGBTQIA, BIPOC, and women, it continues to be dominated by white men. Asian Americans have only recently been included, and Asian American disability history has not yet highlighted Japanese Americans. Archives and institutions specializing in disability history center whites, and institutions specializing in Japanese American history overlook disability. Blind and especially Deaf people form the core of existing Japanese American disability history, while physically and especially intellectually disabled people are talked about, rather than sharing their experiences. Military history focuses on able-bodied Japanese American men, despite the large number of Japanese Americans wounded (and possibly disabled) in combat. Disabled Japanese Americans also broke racial, gender, and other barriers, and campaigned for civil rights and redress. But there were also ordinary people. All of them lived and continue to live in a racist, ableist society that erases Asian Americans and disabled people, and especially disabled Asian Americans. According to the Census Bureau, about 1.4 million Asians and Pacific Islanders in America identify as being disabled. It is important that disabled Japanese Americans’ stories and contributions become a valuable part of the Asian American experience.1

Disability history in France: past, present and future

Abstract What is disability? How might a focus on disability as a category of human experience change the way we think and write about the French past? In this roundtable seven historians discuss the emergence of disability studies in France, assessing the continued relevance of classics in the field as well as new directions in research. Scholarly attention to disability, the contributors argue, has the potential to transform modern French historiography, not only by challenging our understanding of major ‘turning points’ such as the French Revolution or the world wars, but offering fresh insights into race, class and gender identities, as well as citizenship, inclusion and belonging in French society.

A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century ed. by D. Christopher Gabbard and Susannah B. Mintz (review)

A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century ed. by D. Christopher Gabbard and Susannah B. Mintz (review)

Disability and the widening gap in mid-life wealth accumulation: A longitudinal examination

Research suggests that persons living with a disability are disadvantaged in terms of employment outcomes and experience greater economic vulnerability. Despite our understanding of wealth inequality in later life as the result of an accumulative process of resource acquisition that occurs across the life course, conclusions about economic inequality associated with disability are mainly based on cross-sectional research or very short-term panel studies. In this paper, we examine the extent to which work disability in mid-life creates a cumulative disadvantage in wealth accumulation that grows with age. Using long-term longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we follow respondents from their 40 s into their 60 s to understand the relationship between work disability and wealth accumulation over time. Growth curve models include two specifications of trajectories of household wealth accumulation; as a function of time-varying work disability and also as a function of cumulative exposure to work disability in mid-life. Although both specifications indicate a disability penalty to wealth accumulation, the cumulative exposure model shows that initial wealth disparities associated with disability grow substantially with age, resulting in a widening gap in household wealth at the threshold of traditional retirement age for those with histories of temporary or persistent work disability in midlife.

Fugitive Figurations of Chronic Disability: Reconstructing Black Disability Politics in Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy

Abstract “Fugitive Figurations of Chronic Disability: Re-Constructing the Black Disability Politics in Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy” fills a gap in nineteenth-century Black disability histories that have overlooked questions of chronic disabilities. In Iola Leroy, Harper writes from the perspective of the chronically disabled and offers fugitive figurations that exceed, resist, and stand apart from nineteenth-century representations of white true women’s invalidism and racial pathologizations. Harper uses Iola’s and other characters’ chronic debilities as a social location for imagining an alternative Black epistemology of the chronic with its own “phraseology” to testify to the inseparability of racial and disability justice as a part of Black freedom struggles. As part of its fugitive figurations of chronic disabilities, Iola Leroy also unbinds Black bodies and minds from a disciplinary individualistic productive capitalist time; and it centers an inclusive postbellum Black community of collective mutual care that exposes the limitations of a liberal (white) sentimental politics of sympathy. Harper’s fugitive figurations of chronic disability in Iola Leroy raise important questions about the methods critics use to recover Black disability in nineteenth-century US literature, methods which too often mine for present-day models of disabled medical verisimilitude and visibility rather than excavating the alternative figurations that Black writers such as Harper employed as part of twinned anti-ableist and anti-racist liberation and care practice.

Frequent Request of Injectable Biperiden in a Young Patient with Uncommon Neck Deviation and History of Neurodevelopmental Disorder

Introduction: Malingering is a differential diagnosis in the field of medical disorders, especially in the field of forensic medicine. In medicine, malingering is when a person imitates a medical or psychiatric disorder with external motivations to gain financial gain or avoid social or occupational duties. In some cases, diagnosing a medical or psychological condition from malingering can be challenging and difficult. In this case report, a patient with a history of multiple hospitalization, neurodevelopmental disorders, and intellectual disability requested to receive injectable Biperiden due to aggression, irritable mood, and neck deviation, and in order to receive it, he deliberately showed neck dystonia. This report aimed to discuss on a neuropsychiatric symptom, after which the patient requested a drug injection to resolve it, in order to differentiate possible diagnoses such as drug complication, factitious disorder, and functional neurological symptom disorder. On the other hand, during the recent searches of similar texts, conflicting results and suggestions have been presented.

Children of Bill 82: Reflective Histories of Disability and Childhood in Ontario, Canada

Through an analysis of personal histories, we reflect on changes in disability discourses in educational contexts since the 1970s. We argue that educational systems are deeply resistant to critical discourse of disability even while espousing social justice principles. We simultaneously recognize the disconnection between disability, education, and the lived experiences of disabled children, and the way in which their experiences are framed. We call for a more integrated discourse between academic theories of disability, professional systems, and children’s lived experiences in order to better care for children and their families, and to address injustice in education systems.

Introduction to Disability and Antiableist Health Care: A Pilot, Student-Led Module for Preclinical Medical Students.

Physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians often care for disabled patients, who comprise America's largest marginalized population. Despite medical students' and physicians' discomfort with caring for disabled patients and the pervasiveness of ableism in health care, medical education lacks disability-focused education. Kern's approach to curriculum development and disability community input were used to design a three-part, elective curriculum for first-year medical students. Part one introduced disability models and language. Part two described how to perform a comprehensive history and physical examination for a disabled patient using ADEPT-CARE. Part three provided an overview of disability history and the disability rights movement. The curriculum's goal was to improve students' attitudes regarding disability health and self-perceived knowledge and confidence in caring for patients with disabilities. The curriculum was evaluated through presurvey and postsurvey. Students favorably reviewed the curriculum. One hundred percent of students ( n = 21) agreed or strongly agreed that the curriculum improved their knowledge of disability health, increased their perceived confidence in caring for patients with disabilities, and enhanced their medical education. There were no statistically significant differences in students' attitudes toward patients with disabilities after curriculum completion. Our asynchronous module provides one potential curriculum for increasing preclinical medical students' self-perceived knowledge of disability health.

A Material Culture of Medieval Disability: Contextualising Norwegian Votive Offerings

In this paper, the potential for material culture studies within the history of disability is explored through a study of preserved anatomical votives from medieval Norway left in connection with miraculous healing practices. The Norwegian votives, which include wooden body parts of hands, arms, finger, feet and legs as well as mobility aids, are here related to the lived experience of the physically impaired. Anatomical votives have been interpreted as meaningful depictions of how an individual conceptualised the body part in question, which they sought healing for. Through a posthumanist approach, anatomical votives can, however, not only be seen as solely representational of a body part but as material extensions of the body. Preserved mobility aids, here identified as hand-trestles and a knee-brace, provide insight into the availability of aids for individuals with lower limb impairments in the medieval North. The study of the material culture of disability can elucidate cultural notions of disability in relation to physical impairment. While written miracle accounts have been identified as important sources for the study of medieval disability, their associated material culture is here presented as important data for the embodied experience of the physically impaired in medieval Norway.

Under the Southern Cross: Helen Keller, disability politics, and apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT In 1951, deaf/blind activist Helen Keller, then seventy years old, made a 10-week tour of South Africa. She visited nearly thirty schools and institutions for the deaf and blind and attended nearly fifty meetings. Keller is well known in disability history, women’s history, and progressivism. Less well known is her host, Arthur Blaxall, an Anglican priest in South Africa who was an advocate for the deaf and blind and an opponent of apartheid. Keller’s South African trip was the culmination of an epistolary friendship between the two disability activists that spanned some thirty years, from 1931 to the 1960s. This visit is documented in correspondence between Blaxall and Keller, as well as in a published commemorative volume that includes writings from Blaxall and Keller, Helen Keller at the Southern Cross (1952). This article argues that the two activists opposed apartheid through their understanding of the plight of the non-seeing and non-hearing. The associations they forged addressing disability provided venues and frameworks for a developing critique of racial inequities. While we identify Keller’s radical vision, we also point to her limits, showing the ways in which her own hopes and dreams for her visit to Africa grew out of colonial cultural repertoires.

Writing Matters: Making Inclusive Literacy Spaces: Resisting Ableism and Honoring Disability

This open letter encourages educators to engage in disability history and honor disability identity to resist ableism and support inclusion in literacy spaces.

Cohort profile: Beijing Healthy Aging Cohort Study (BHACS).

The Beijing Healthy Aging Cohort Study (BHACS) was established to supplement the limited data of a large representative cohort of older people based on the general population and was designed to evaluate the prevalence, incidence, and natural history of cognitive decline, functional disability, and conventional vascular risk factors. The aim was to determine the evolution of these conditions by estimating the rates and determinants of progression and regression to adverse outcomes, including dementia, cardiovascular events, cancer, and all-cause death. It can therefore provide evidence to help policy makers develop better policies to promote healthy aging in China. BHACS consisted of three cohorts (BLSA, CCHS-Beijing, and BECHCS) in Beijing with a total population of 11 235 (6281 in urban and 4954 in rural areas) and an age range of 55 years or older (55-101 years) with a mean age of 70.35 ± 7.71 years (70.69 ± 7.62 years in urban and 69.92 ± 7.80 years in rural areas). BHACS-BLSA conducted the baseline survey in 2009 with a multistage stratification-random clustering procedure for people aged 55 years or older; BHACS-CCHS-Beijing conducted the baseline survey in 2013-2015 with a stratified multistage cluster random sampling method for people aged 55 years or older; and BHACS-BECHCS conducted the baseline survey in 2010-2014 with two-stage cluster random sampling method for people aged 60 years or older. Data were collected through questionnaires, physical measurements, and laboratory analyses. Topics covered by BHACS include a wide range of physical and mental health indicators, lifestyles and personal, family, and socio-economic determinants of health. There are no immediate plans to make the cohort data freely available to the public, but specific proposals for further collaboration are welcome. For further information and collaboration, please contact the corresponding author Yao He (e-mail: yhe301@x263.net).

Going Beyond Adaptation: An Integrative Review and Ethical Considerations of Semi-Structured Interviews With Elementary-Aged Children

There are currently no methodological frameworks available to conduct semi-structured interviews in the education and social sciences fields with children of primary school age, between 6–12, having no history of trauma or disabilities. To fill this gap, we conducted an integrative review of the literature to uncover current methodological considerations using the PRISMA procedure to search the ERIC, SAGE, ProQuest CBCA, SciELO and Redined databases. 19 methodological articles across multiple disciplines were retrieved and analyzed through inductive content analysis. We found that using traditional semi-structured interviews with children brings inherent challenges and that adaptation of current methods is not sufficient. A preliminary set of interviewing guidelines emphasizing a flexible and laissez-faire approach as well as a list of alternatives to the semi-structured interview for elementary-aged children are proposed, laying the foundations for a much-needed overhaul of current interviewing methods.

Who Invented the Possum? What Historians Can Learn from Disabled Innovation in Britain's Responaut Communities.

This article provides a new exploration of disabled innovation that transforms our understanding of collective contributions to the history of science and technology. It does so by showing how a user network galvanized individual inventions into disabled expertise by tracking the development of two technologies-the Selectascan/Possum and the adapted Loudspeaking Telephone. Hamraie and Fritsch's 2019 "Crip Technoscience Manifesto" defined "disabled expertise" by exploring how disabled technology modification has been devalued. This article takes up their manifesto's challenge to combine disability history with science and technology studies by analyzing the technologies discussed in Responaut, a British quarterly magazine published between 1963 and 1989. Responauts were people who depended on respirators to breathe. This technological interdependence meant that users adapted an extraordinary variety of technologies to live well with respirators and modify their personal environment.

Assessing the Association of Socio Demographic Factors with Dental Anxiety: A Cross Sectional Study at A Tertiary Care Hospital in Islamabad

Background: Dental anxiety among patients is a significant impediment leading to delayed or incomplete dental treatment. Understanding the determinants of dental anxiety is crucial, given the potential variations in causative factors across different regions due to cultural diversity and past dental experiences. In light of limited available data and cultural heterogeneity, this study aimed to explore the correlation between age, gender, educational level, socio-economic status, and residence with dental anxiety among patients seeking care at a teaching dental hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 375 patients attending a private teaching hospital was conducted, with dental anxiety assessed using the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale. Exclusion criteria involved patients with known anxiety disorders or a history of intellectual disabilities. Results: The findings demonstrated a statistically significant gender-based difference in dental anxiety (p-value: 0.00), with a majority of females exhibiting anxiety levels ranging from moderate to extreme. Additionally, a significant association was observed between socio-economic status and dental anxiety (p-value: 0.03), revealing lower levels of dental anxiety among individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds compared to those from middle and upper socio-economic strata. However, no significant differences were identified in dental anxiety concerning age, educational level, and residence (urban/rural). Conclusion: The study concludes that targeted anxiety reduction protocols should be prioritized for female patients and those belonging to the upper socio-economic status.

Higher education and the flipped classroom approach: efficacy for students with a history of learning disabilities

Higher education continually seeks new approaches to support students with various learning needs. At present, Finland attempts to provide such support through accessibility and reasonable accommodation efforts, but students with learning disabilities may still encounter many barriers in their studies. One approach suggested to meet the needs of a diverse student population is the flipped classroom. While substantial research exists about its benefits and drawbacks, less is known from the perspective of students who have a history of receiving pedagogical support. Therefore, the present study examined the experience and performance of these students in flipped higher education courses. Results indicated no difference in the academic performance of learners with a history of support compared to those without. Students with a history of support needs reported a lower assessment of self-regulation and self-efficacy for learning, and experienced the flipped courses as more difficult. However, they favored more collaboration in general and in the flipped classroom approach in particular. Additionally, regression models indicated that achievement in flipped courses was explained primarily from the lack of regulation and guidance perspectives. These findings suggest new insights for teaching those with learning disabilities, particularly the support a flipped classroom may provide, but developing a more in-depth understanding is warranted.

Disparities in Preoperative Goals of Care Documentation in Veterans

Preoperative goals of care discussion and documentation are important for patients undergoing surgery, a major health care stressor that incurs risk. To assess the association of race, ethnicity, and other factors, including history of mental health disability, with disparities in preoperative goals of care documentation among veterans. This retrospective cross-sectional study assessed data from the Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA) of 229 737 veterans who underwent surgical procedures between January 1, 2017, and October 18, 2022. Patient-level (ie, race, ethnicity, medical comorbidities, history of mental health comorbidity) and system-level (ie, facility complexity level) factors. Preoperative life-sustaining treatment (LST) note documentation or no LST note documentation within 30 days prior to or on day of surgery. The standardized mean differences were calculated to assess the magnitude of differences between groups. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs were estimated with logistic regression. In this study, 13 408 patients (5.8%) completed preoperative LST from 229 737 VHA patients (209 123 [91.0%] male; 20 614 [9.0%] female; mean [SD] age, 65.5 [11.9] years) who received surgery. Compared with patients who did complete preoperative LST, patients tended to complete preoperative documentation less often if they were female (19 914 [9.2%] vs 700 [5.2%]), Black individuals (42 571 [19.7%] vs 2416 [18.0%]), Hispanic individuals (11 793 [5.5%] vs 631 [4.7%]), or from rural areas (75 637 [35.0%] vs 4273 [31.9%]); had a history of mental health disability (65 974 [30.5%] vs 4053 [30.2%]); or were seen at lowest-complexity (ie, level 3) facilities (7849 [3.6%] vs 78 [0.6%]). Over time, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, patients undergoing surgical procedures completed preoperative LST increasingly more often. Covariate-adjusted estimates of preoperative LST completion demonstrated that patients of racial or ethnic minority background (Black patients: OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.77-0.80; P <.001; patients selecting other race: OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.74-0.81; P <.001; Hispanic patients: OR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.76-0.81; P <.001) and patients from rural regions (OR, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.90-0.93; P <.001) had lower likelihoods of completing LST compared with patients who were White or non-Hispanic and patients from urban areas. Patients with any mental health disability history also had lower likelihood of completing preoperative LST than those without a history (OR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.92-0.94; P = .001). In this cross-sectional study, disparities in documentation rates within a VHA cohort persisted based on race, ethnicity, rurality of patient residence, history of mental health disability, and access to high-volume, high-complexity facilities.

Disability activism and institutional heritage

ABSTRACT This article focuses on former sites of disability institutions and activism of people with disability. It argues that planning processes for redevelopment and re-use of sites of former institutions are an important focus for activism, particularly for reparative urban planning and inclusive community engagement. This argument is made through two sets of data. First, disability activism is explored in a case study of the 2021 New South Wales (Australia) Government planning proposal for rezoning Peat Island. The proposal overlooked the island’s 99-year history as an institution and excluded people with intellectual disability from engaging in planning processes. Second, the article contextualises the Peat Island case study within the authors’ empirical research with people with intellectual disability about remembering institutions. Together, these sets of data underscore links between disability history and futures by bringing together institutional heritage and urban planning with recognition of lived experiences (including activism) of people who were institutionalised. This historical context is then considered alongside present-day disability activism for a more inclusive, equitable future. The article proposes further research on disability-inclusive, reparative planning approaches to redevelopment and re-use of former sites of institutions to promote disability activist leadership and contributions to the afterlives of former institutions.

The Keller Plantation and the Racial Plot of Disability History in the U.S.

Between the popularization of Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life (1903), and the cinematic dramatization of The Miracle Worker (1962), scenes of Keller’s early life and education have served as touchstones through which nondisabled Americans have imagined disability’s history and narrowed its political possibilities: toward the conditional dispersal of access based on individual acts of overcoming. Yet, if Keller’s story has played an outsize role in consolidating disability’s history and politics, it is also a site of profound racial occlusion. The context of Keller’s early life on the Keller plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama is largely absent from her popular legacy. With the disappearance of this context, the black people who facilitated Keller’s disabled coming of age have also fallen away, as well as the history of slavery and Indigenous removal that made her life story possible. This void—at the locus of perhaps the most hegemonic origin story of American disability history—is cause for critical race inquiry. This essay traces the relationship between the material background of Keller’s autobiography and its imaginative foreground; from her family’s role in settler conquest and slavery in the Alabama Muscle Shoals, to Keller’s status as a transcendent icon of disability. Reading between the plantation and the plot of Keller’s Story while locating both beside the Tennessee River’s shoals, this essay turns to theories of cartography and narrative authored by Sylvia Wynter and Tiffany Lethabo King for insight into a critical paradox: the antiblack and anti-Indigenous structure of ableism, and the whiteness of disabled representation. By resituating Keller’s iconicity in relation to conquest, slavery, and their afterlives, this essay locates the problems and possibilities of narrating black and Indigenous disability history from the Keller plantation’s surround. Yet, while invested in unsettling the landscape, I neither recover these stories nor entomb them as untellable. Instead, I write toward further investment in black and Indigenous counter-archives that have complicated who has been—and who remains—the imaginable and politically traction-able subject of disability.