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Parents are often concerned about managing risks for their children, particularly in the context of disability. This paper reports qualitative findings from an intervention study and examines how parents of children with developmental disabilities (mainly autism) manage risks during play. Interviews (n = 17) highlighted parents' fears about their child's safety, which were often exacerbated by concerns about the child's (lack of) cognitive and intellectual capabilities to 'appropriately' negotiate harms. Outdoor play and play that involved other children were reported as particularly challenging. In these contexts, parents described how they would intervene and redirect play activities to avoid any emergent physical, emotional and social harms. The social aspects of risk and disability gave way to adult-mediated and controlled forms of play. We conclude by considering opportunities to support the full inclusion of children with disabilities and their rights to play. Play is an important aspect of all children's health and development Children with disabilities often experience fewer opportunities to engage in play Parents responses to 'risk-taking' in their children's play help understand the barriers to play for children with a disability Social aspects of play are particularly challenging for parents of a child with disability Developing socially inclusive contexts is important to enhance all children's opportunities to play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of Kazakhstan ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People in January 2015 as part of a programme of 'Future without Barriers' and has sought to make the majority of its schools inclusive. This paper reports on progress towards inclusion and the challenges faced by a nation that is aspiring to develop as an independent nation whilst still utilising knowledge and capital from the former Soviet Union. An analysis of the country's 'readiness' for inclusive education is offered, using Hacking's 2010 concept of (2006; 1998a & b; 2010) 'making up people' and Mitchell's 'ablenationalism'. Ablenationalism is also used to explore how Kazakhstan's efforts to assert its own distinctive identity and culture affected the positioning of disabled children and adults within education and within society. We conclude with some considerations of the possibilities for the future rights of disabled children and for inclusion. This article focuses on the republic of Kazakhstan, which separated from the Soviet Union in 1991. The country has made significant efforts to introduce inclusive education over a short period of time and there has been some success. A major barrier to progress comes from the country's system of assessing and classifying disabled children. Teachers have found inclusive education challenging and many have expressed a preference for segregation. Parents faced enormous challenges in having their disabled children accepted in mainstream schools. However, by establishing parents' groups, they have been able to influence policy and practice and increase progress towards inclusive education. Recommendations made to the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan, who commissioned this research, included adopting an international perspective to enable it to learn from other countries; incentives to schools to encourage greater inclusiveness and extended media campaigns to change attitudes towards disability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the world enters a new normal period following the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) global outbreak, the propensity toward the exclusion of the vulnerable group of children with disabilities is a current issue that must be given attention. This issue paper describes the collective actions to usher children with disabilities in the new normal post-COVID-19 period in the Philippines. These actions focus on assistive technologies to augment information and communication, critical services to sustain medical and developmental needs, adaptive learning methods to continue education, and other social services to improve access and mobility. Set within a single national context, this issue paper provides a view as regards the shared initiatives to improve the conditions of children with disabilities in a developing country amid the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parenting of children with autism has traditionally been explored through its negative aspects, but researchers have started to look for different parental experiences focusing on the positive experiences, family resilience and strengths of children with autism. A cross-cultural analysis considers that cultural understanding of autism reflects the way different societies and parents understand it, the variation in meanings of health, illness and disability and not simply the amount of information about autism. In a small-scale exploratory study in Spain, 8 parents from different families were interviewed to explore how they experienced their children's autism and their perception of society's response to it. Findings suggested a general lack of information about autism, parents' trouble finding strengths of autism and a division of roles and responsibilities that seems to place a disproportionate load on the mothers. The way that a society understands autism affects how parents experience their sons' and daughters' autism. This paper examines the experiences of parents of children and young people with autism in Spain through semi-structured interviews. The participants of our study did not feel included in Spanish society since many people have misconceptions about autism, do not know how to help and stare at them and their children. The parents of our study seemed to share a medical view of their sons and daughters and only one of them could think of a positive trait of his son, besides being loving. Both fathers and mothers who took part in the study agreed that mothers bear all the responsibility for caring and deciding the therapeutic and educational measures adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that addressing disability-related child protection risks is the preserve of child protection academics, is perhaps the basis of the dearth of theoretical papers emerging from disability studies, on what is an intercontinental and evidently substantial problem for disabled children and their families. Disabled children are over-represented in their contact with child protection professionals, and in their likelihood of availing of out-of-home placements. Moreover, this is aligned to strong research evidence around a significantly enhanced risk of experiencing all kinds of abuse. The lack of explicitly non-tragedy perspectives on disability in this area risks perpetuation of discourses of misfortune and lack. Whilst overall, insufficient quantity of knowledge exists on the subject area. Selective use of theoretical insights from the proliferating field of Critical Disability Studies in this paper relieves the scarcity of theorisation around the identified problem of disproportionately high risk of abuse and neglect for disabled children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being the parent of a child with a disability and complex medical condition has been described as one of the most life-affirming, meaningful and challenging things a person can do. Co-ordinated supports are important to ensure the inclusion, participation and wellbeing of all family members. Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is designed to support Australians aged under 65 years who have a disability. Concerns have emerged regarding inequities in access to services provided within this scheme. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of families living outside urban areas and engaging within the scheme. Utilising interpretative phenomenological analysis, this research provides important insights into the contextual factors that influence the subjective wellbeing of all family members and the manner in which the market-based NDIS may produce inequities in wellbeing outcomes for families. This article looks in detail at the lived experiences of families navigating supports provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and other primary service systems in rural regions across Eastern Australia. Each family included within this study experienced multiple episodes of delays, feelings of isolation and fears that their family member was missing out on essential supports and services, despite having approved funding packages under the NDIS. All participants in this study highly regarded, valued and respected their children and worked to ensure their safety and wellbeing. Their frustration was not for their children but for the failure of the NDIS to demonstrate these values. This paper is an important contribution to research in disability studies, and also has the potential to influence further development in this field and in shaping the future of the NDIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive education has often been fronted as the panacea in the education of disabled children. Governments have made efforts for disabled children to access schools with their nondisabled counterparts. However, inclusive education should go beyond the mere presence of disabled children in mainstream schools to the participation and achievement of such children. This paper uses the theoretical approach of Disability Studies in Education to explore the extent that the traditional schooling system is willing to go in the pursuit of inclusive education for disabled learners. Can the schooling system change from the current cohort based model to an individual based model? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores tensions between the social nature of learning and the current emphasis upon individual support. The paper contrasts the focus upon context in discussions with parents and practitioners, with the focus upon the individual within formal and informal written documents. The analysis is partly situated within the first author’s experiences as a parent researcher, drawing additionally upon ethnographic research carried out with families involved in early intervention, including an evaluation of over 150 pages of documentation provided by a parent. It identifies the need for assessment and evaluation to focus upon and record the broad range of context that influences learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Robert McRuer ‘cripping entails radically re-visioning, from committed anti-ableist positions, the taken-for-granted systems in which we are located’. Importantly, this critique enables us to recognize sites of inequality in education and provides tools to create alternative ways of conceptualizing pedagogy. Informed by such theoretical approaches to disability studies, this paper offers a Critical-crip Discourse Analysis (CcDA) of images and text representing art, craft, and design education in England between 2005 and 2011. This analysis indicates that although art education is recognized as significant for all children, limited representations of disabled children and young people can result in their experiences becoming devalued. Descriptions of apparently inclusive educational practices naturalize, prioritize, and reinforce so-called able-bodied/mindedness and fail to capture the benefits of diversity to educative practices in art. This analysis of discourses about art education is therefore an essential step in re-imagining an equitable and sustainable art education with true relevance for all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to capability theory, we can identify everything that is of fundamental importance in the lives of people with profound and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities if we take full account of their human capabilities. In this paper I both acknowledge the contribution of capability theory to our understanding of the condition of profoundly disabled people and express some scepticism about the extent of that contribution, suggesting that there is more to the value of a human being than an audit of their capabilities might reveal. I explore human capabilities as discussed by Martha Nussbaum, and in connection with theatre, music and the use of humour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literature review regarding the social support of immigrant mothers of disabled children in Canada was undertaken with a focus on settings where supports need to be shored up. An integrative review of published papers and policy reports concerning key aspects of social supports for immigrant mothers and disabled children was undertaken. Immigrant mothers experience numerous barriers to social supports for themselves and their disabled children. Maternal immigrant populations experience unique challenges in the setting of childhood disability as well as the challenges of mothers in the dominant culture. There are negative impacts on maternal health as a result of inadequate policy offerings. Public health policy needs to be refashioned in light of weak systems and supports for both immigrant mothers and disabled children and to acknowledge that the current system poses concerning implications for the long-term health of both groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the emergence of disabled children’s childhood studies as an area of study offers a distinct approach to inquiry; it represents a significant shift away from the long-standing deficit discourses of disabled childhoods that have dominated western culture and its reaches. On the one hand, contemporary childhood studies contest normative, Eurocentric mantras around the ‘standard child’; while on the other, disability studies critique the medical discourses and the scope of its authority. However, while drawing on these two approaches, disabled children’s childhood studies provide more than this combined critique. In disabled children’s childhood studies, disabled children are not viewed as necessarily having problems or being problems, but as having childhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This short paper examines the extent to which the UK Coalition Government has been inventive or reparatory in their approach to policies governing the education of disabled children and young people. Of central concern here is the extent to which policies contribute to the invention of the disabled child by conceptualising their education as a constant process of reparation. I argue here that this landscape of policy proposals creates particular problems for the ways in which the pedagogic relationship can be conceptualised, reinforcing teaching as a complex negotiation of deficit and anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Families with children with disabilities are at higher risk of stress, financial disadvantage and breakdown. In recent decades, research and policy have shifted focus from these problems to a strengths-based approach, using concepts such as family resilience. By definition, resilience is the ability to cope in adverse circumstances, suggesting a reliance on the individual. If this is the case, then to what extent does ‘family resilience’ place another burden of responsibility onto families? Whose responsibility is family resilience? This paper begins to answer this question using interviews with parents of children with developmental disabilities based in New South Wales, Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the daily (micro)mobilities that youth with a visual or auditory impairment use to sustain well-being. Geographical research suggests that mobility is a universal phenomenon referred to the capacity to navigate one’s way through different spaces and places. Using a qualitative cross-cultural, visual methods approach to research with vulnerable youth, including four participants with visual or auditory impairments, we demonstrate that everyday patterns of (micro)mobilities through the youth’s home, school and community help disabled youth create pathways to resilience. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to services that promote resilience against ableist beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]