The Origins of University Centers on Developmental Disabilities: Early Expectations and Legislation

This article describes the evolution and early expectations of university-based programs to serve people with disabilities. I describe the how the committee that President John F. Kennedy created to make recommendations about how to better serve people with mental retardation suggested university-based programs that would improve the science and provide training to professionals who work with this community. I describe the early legislation and program decisions that were made by stakeholders that created the first generation of University Affiliated Facilities and Programs to serve people with disabilities

The Efficacy of Tele-practice on Expressive Language Outcomes for Adults with Aphasia

Access to skilled speech and language intervention can be difficult for individuals residing in rural areas as well as for individuals with complex health and mobility issues. Telehealth (including therapy and rehabilitation) can provide effective services in the context of one’s home, allowing clinicians to reach a wider population of individuals. Purpose: To determine whether tele-practice service delivery produces positive expressive language outcomes that are comparable to direct service delivery for adults with aphasia. Method: A variety of databases were searched utilizing systematic inclusionary and exclusionary criteria. Research focused on adults over the age of 18 with a formal diagnosis of aphasia who engaged in telehealth intervention. Various research designs were identified and analyzed. Identified articles included a total of 235 participants. Results: The identified studies supported the implementation of tele-practice as a means of providing individuals with aphasia access to services that produce positive expressive language outcomes. Several studies indicated that tele-practice produces similar outcomes when compared to traditional direct therapy. Several studies also included qualitative data regarding patient satisfaction and quality of life, much of which produced positive outcomes. Conclusion: The chosen studies were found to largely support the inclusion of tele-practice as an effective option for producing positive expressive language outcomes for individuals with aphasia. Potential limitations include variability in treatment times and programs, assessment tools used, clinical training of individuals providing treatment, small sample sizes, and variable patient characteristics. Future research should focus on implementing research designs using larger numbers of individuals to increase generalizability.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/csdms/1003/thumbnail.jp

Centerpiece Styles

Have you ever thought of using book ends, a glass celery dish, mustard and chilli pots, or a German Band to decorate a table? Table decorations can be fascinating if one does not wait until the very last minute to think of some new and clever ideas

Cloud computing and the humanities: National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources

The NeCTAR Research Cloud provides free cloud computing for Australian Researchers. This poster describes this important piece of new infrastructure, and why those in the digital humanities might be interested.Australian Academy of the Humanities; the ANU College of Arts and Social Science

The urban politics of greenspace: exploring community empowerment for greenspace aspirations, justice and resiliences. A participatory action research project in Glasgow

Over the past decade, greenspace policy has grown in prominence, associated with providing opportunities to address health inequality, urban regeneration and climate adaptation. In parallel, within community development, the discourses of community empowerment and resilience are employed as a response to the same challenges. Yet in Scotland’s urban neighbourhoods of highest deprivation, there remains the triple jeopardy of living in proximity to derelict land, poor environmental quality, and ‘the absence of environmental goods’; all of which can be summarised as poor access to good quality greenspace. At the same time, in relation to the lived experience of socio-political marginalisation, both community empowerment and resilience are contested concepts. The aim of this thesis is to identify the enablers and constraints to fulfilling local greenspace aspirations as rights. Central to realising this aim is the theorising of a trivalent conceptualisation of environmental justice (comprising distributional, procedural and recognition dimensions) and an eco-socialist positioning to inform community and urban resilience strategies. First, clarity is sought by distinguishing between five primary discourses. These pertain to climate policy, city planning, public health, community development, and community transformation. Greenspace is then presented as a ‘boundary object’ that intersects the discourses of resilience; and social, environmental and climate justice concerns. The significance of this research is to foreground greenspace aspirations from the perspective of people living with area deprivation. Located in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Glasgow, five interrelated participatory action research projects were undertaken over two years, culminating in a neighbourhood greenspace network. Using participatory inquiry generated critical awareness of greenspace inequality and demonstrated local motivation to work collaboratively for greenspace action. It also exposed the deficits in procedural practices to facilitate inclusive decision-making. Conceiving these tensions as the urban politics of greenspace draws attention to the forms, spaces and levels of power within and between local authority and neighbourhood ‘social worlds’. The empirical findings provide important insight into the visceral experience of greenspace inequality; reflect wider concerns about community engagement practices; and problematise empowerment in relation to greenspace policy and land reform. Notwithstanding, this study identifies the potential for developing greenspace networks to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for bottom-up deliberation and instituting local greenspace priorities. However, in recognition of individual and organisational resilience factors in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the participatory action research projects also highlight the importance of local authority actors playing a leadership role in procedural implementation, and in facilitating the visions that transpire. In order to do this, existing community engagement budgets and priorities need to be reappraised. Further, a more radical community development practice is required to pursue a rebalance of distributional environmental burdens and benefits, rights and responsibilities. Improving the accessibility and quality of greenspace as a right, I argue, is political. It establishes a coherent thread through diverse greenspace policy objectives and serves to crystallise the strategic and operational gaps between the five discourses of resilience. By doing so, it shifts the debate from assets to rights in order to address sustainability and inequality for neighbourhoods experiencing multiple deprivation