Parents with Intellectual Disability in a Population Context

Parenting by people with intellectual disability continues to confront societal sensibilities. On the one hand, parents with intellectual disability engage in the valued social role of raising children; on the other, their parenting attracts (typically negative) attention based on an expectation of their limited capacities to parent. The literature primarily addresses the question of whether or not parents with intellectual disability can be adequate parents or reports on methods for improving their parenting skills. An emerging trend in the literature over the last decade takes a different perspective. Rather than concentrating exclusively on parents with intellectual disability, this perspective focuses on their parenting situation compared to that of other parents more generally. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge about parents and parenting with intellectual disability in this broader population context. The focus of the paper is on the use of larger scale datasets to understand the situation of parents with intellectual disability compared with other parents and to examine the contextual variables that influence their parenting.Centre for Disability Research and Polic

LEFT BEHIND: 2013 MONITORING THE SOCIAL INCLUSION OF YOUNG AUSTRALIANS WITH SELF-REPORTED LONG TERM HEALTH CONDITIONS, IMPAIRMENTS OR DISABILITIES 2001 - 2011

Disabled Australian adolescents and young adults are more likely to experience social exclusion than their non-disabled peers. The gap between the two actually widened between 2001 and 2011. Social exclusion in adolescence leads to poor outcomes, such as lower educational achievement and unemployment, in adulthood. It affects not only the health and wellbeing of the individual; it also impacts on their family and the wider community. The inability of people with disabilities to participate socially and economically is a loss to the whole of society. This report maps the extent of social inclusion or exclusion of young disabled Australians, aged between 15 and 29, over the years 2001 to 2011. It found that although the social inclusion of young disabled Australians increased on a number of key indicators, the gap between disabled and non-disabled young Australians actually increased over the 11 year period. On 13 key indicators of social inclusion including employment, living in a jobless household, having support from family or friends in times of crisis and feeling safe, young disabled Australians are now more disadvantaged compared to their non-disabled peers than they were in 2001.Centre for Disability Research and Polic

Quadriplegia, virtue theory and flourishing:a qualitative study drawing on self-narratives

Grounded in the logic of the virtue tradition, the qualitative study “the good life and quadriplegia” collected the self-narratives of people that have lived with the impairment over the medium to long term. This article draws on those narratives to describe how people understood the good life in the context of the losses and hardship of their spinal-cord injury, and the virtues and attitudes that helped them to achieve it. While highlighting the importance of virtue, participant stories resisted the ideology of the positivity myth, recognising that flourishing includes hardships, limitation, and failure, as well as meaning, virtue, and accomplishment

Disability Transitions Across the Life Course: Preliminary Data from Australia

The aim of this working paper is to present preliminary analyses of longitudinal data from Australia that addresses various aspects of the dynamic nature of disability over time. Disability research is dominated by cross-sectional studies that have examined the prevalence and correlates of disability at a particular point in time. As a result, little is known about the duration of disability or the factors that may be associated with disability offset. This reliance on cross-sectional data has served to reinforce the notion that disability once acquired is a relatively permanent state. In recent years, the increasing availability of longitudinal data (especially from well-constructed population-based surveys) has opened up new opportunities for disability research. These have included the possibility of investigating the dynamic nature of disability over time. The data presented in this working paper are based on analysis of ten years of data collected by the study of Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). Our analyses focused on the most recent consecutive five year period in which the study participants provided information on their disability status.Centre for Disability Research and Polic

Estimated Prevalence and Living Circumstances of Parents with Intellectual Disability In Australia from Selected National Surveys

Analysis of SDAC 2009 data identified an estimated 0.41% of Australian parents had intellectual disability. This equates to an estimated 17,000 parents with intellectual disability residing in private dwellings in Australia. Analysis of GSS 2010 data revealed that, compared with non-disabled parents and also compared with parents with other disabilities, parents with intellectual disability were significantly more likely to: -be in a jobless household -be in households in the lowest three deciles of equivalised weekly income -be on government pensions as the main source of personal income -have ever been without a permanent place to live -have ever stayed in a shelter, squatted in an abandoned building and/or slept rough -have less frequent contact with family and friends -have negative or mixed feelings about life -have poorer self-assessed healthCentre for Disability Research and Polic

Eligibility, the ICF and the UN Convention: Australian perspectives

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in Australia, acts as a philosophical and moral statement and framework guiding integrated and strategic policy across the nation. Broad policy agreement has been reached by governments, and both the government and non-government sectors are developing strategies for implementation or evaluation. There is however a need for a more integrated approach to disability policy and information, reflecting all three components of the Italian project

LEFT BEHIND: MONITORING THE SOCIAL INCLUSION OF YOUNG AUSTRALIANS WITH SELF- REPORTED LONG TERM HEALTH CONDITIONS, IMPAIRMENTS OR DISABILITIES 2001 - 2009

Adolescents and young adults with disabilities are at heightened risk of social exclusion. Exclusion leads to poor outcomes in adulthood which in turn affects individuals’ health and wellbeing and that of their families and society through loss of productive engagement in their communities. Australia’s Social Inclusion Indicators Framework provides indices in domains of participation, resources and multiple and entrenched disadvantage to monitor and report on social inclusion. The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey provides data over time on households in Australia. Using these tools we report here on the extent of social inclusion/exclusion of young disabled Australians over the past decade. Relative to their non-disabled peers, young disabled Australians are significantly less likely to do well on participation indicators.Centre for Disability Research and Polic

The Well-being of Children with Disabilities in the Asia Pacific Region: Analysis of UNICEF MICS 3 Survey Data from Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Mongolia and Thailand

In this report we have used data from the third round of UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) conducted 2005-8 to describe the relative well-being of disabled and non-disabled children in four South Asian/Pacific countries: Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Mongolia and Thailand. Indicators of well-being were extracted to address issues such as the child’s right to education, health and a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. Our main findings were: In all four countries children with disabilities were markedly more disadvantaged than their non-disabled peers on the majority of the indicators available. In all four countries children with disabilities were markedly more disadvantaged than their non-disabled peers on indicators relating to the child’s right to education, health and an adequate standard of living. In all four countries there were notable differences between disabled children regarding the extent of disadvantage they faced. In both Bangladesh and Lao PDR, for example, children with sensory impairments fared particularly poorly. In Thailand, by contrast, children with cognitive delay fared particularly poorly. These data are important on three counts. First, they demonstrate the viability of using simple items in population surveys to identify and characterize the well-being of disabled children. Second, they add to the limited evidence base on the well-being of children with disabilities in low and middle income countries. Third, they illustrate the importance of disaggregating disability information by type of impairment. UNICEF is working to establish a rigorous and systematic process for collecting data about children with disabilities, preferably as part of all ongoing data collections about children and young people locally, at national level and globally. This is critical to ensuring disabled children are not invisible in attempts to monitor global progress in improving the lives of children. The MICS module despite some limitations was an excellent first step in collecting data on children with disabilities as: (1) MICS is one of the main vehicles for monitoring progress toward achievement of the Millennium Development Goals;4 and (2) there is a growing consensus that achieving the Millennium Development Goals and reducing global inequalities in health and well-being will not be possible unless attention is paid to the specific situation of children with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.Centre for Disability Research and Polic

Sport in the Lives of Young People with Intellectual Disabilities: Negotiating Disability, Identity and Belonging

Whilst there is now a growing body of sociological research on the role of sport in the social, gender and identity rehabilitation of people with physical impairments, research on the role of sport in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities primarily focuses on improving fitness, health and social interactions. Yet sport is not only a form of physical exercise, competition or leisure-it is also a powerful social institution within which social structures and power relations are reproduced and, less frequently, challenged. You don\u27t need an entire sports team or YourEllipticals meant for heavy performing athletes, you just need to be mentally into it. This paper provides insights into the role of sport and physical activity in the lives of four young Australians with intellectual disabilities or cognitive limitations from their own perspectives. Data from life history interviews elicits rich and in-depth insights, revealing that the meanings these young people give to their sporting experiences include-but also go beyond-concerns with fitness, health and social interactions. Though by no means representative of the role of sport for all young people with intellectual disabilities, it is evident that these four young people use sport to negotiate complex emotional worlds around disability, identity, and belonging-much like their physically impaired counterparts

Older disabled workers’ perceptions of volunteering

The activity of volunteering is readily available to, and undertaken by, able-bodied people in Australia and is recognized as a valuable social pursuit, particularly among citizens of retirement age. Despite the known benefits of volunteering, however, there are few reports of disabled people participating as volunteers and little is understood of their experiences or perceptions of volunteering. The aim of this study was to explore how older workers within supported employment settings perceived the opportunities for and barriers to volunteering. Fourteen people with long-standing impairments participated in this small qualitative study. Overall the participants were positive about volunteering, but noted they might require support to volunteer successfully. Drawing upon the participants' views, recommendations are made for developing training. Disabled workers facing retirement need to be supported to have opportunities for active participation in the community as volunteers if so desired.16 page(s