‘Wishing to go it alone’: the complicated interplay of independence,interdependence and agency

Some individuals with disabilities for whom verbal speech is not reliable use facilitated communication to express thoughts and ideas. While they may require intensive physical support initially, the goal is independent typing. However, this emphasis on fading support and independence bears consideration. We utilize a Disability Studies lens to frame practices around independence and the complicated interplay between interdependence, agency and voice. Based on qualitative analysis of communication training sessions, we present four findings: the complexity of the message versus fading of physical support, the emotional dimensions of independence, the facilitator’s navigation of multiple roles, and the importance of facilitating agency. We also share implications of reframing independence and facilitating agency for the communication training process.     

Examining Direct Service Worker Turnover in Three Long-Term Care Industries in Ohio

This is the first study to examine direct service worker turnover and its predictors across three provider types: nursing homes, home health agencies, and providers of services for the developmentally disabled. Stratified random sampling procedures were used to select provider types across five geographic regions in Ohio. Data were collected from administrative staff. Findings indicated that annual direct service worker turnover did not significantly vary by provider type (mean = 33%). Predictors of turnover related to job burnout, negative social support, and region. Policymakers can promote practices to lower direct service worker turnover such as addressing burnout and increasing support.     

Inequalities in students’ union leadership: the role of social networks

Drawing on a national survey of students’ union officers and staff, and a series of 24 focus groups involving both union officers and institutional senior managers, this article explores the characteristics of those who take up leadership roles in their (higher education) students’ union. We show that, in several areas – and particularly in relation to gender, ethnicity and age – union leaders do not represent well the diversity of the wider student body. In explaining these inequalities, we argue that friendship groups and other peer networks play a significant role in determining who does and does not take up leadership positions. Moreover, as friendship groups are often formed on the basis of ‘differential association’ and are thus frequently socially homogenous, inequalities tend to be perpetuated. Wider institutional cultures and societal norms are also implicated.     

Information sharing between the child welfare and behavioral health systems: Perspectives from four stakeholder groups

This qualitative study articulates the challenges, best practices, and facilitators to information sharing when addressing the behavioral health needs of children in out-of-home care. 13 interviews and nine focus groups were conducted to illuminate the perspectives of foster parents, mental health clinicians, provider agency social workers, and city-employed child welfare professionals. In total, 65 individuals participated in this qualitative study and data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. Results indicate that challenges and best practices in cross-system information sharing articulated across the four stakeholder groups are attributed to variation in information accessibility, clarity in roles and protocols, ability in obtaining signatures for consent/release forms, and attitudinal differences towards collaboration. Implications to improve policy and practice are discussed.     

Distributional Phonetic Learning at 10 Months of Age

Infant phonetic perception reorganizes in accordance with the native language by 10 months of age. One mechanism that may underlie this perceptual change is distributional learning, a statistical analysis of the distributional frequency of speech sounds. Previous distributional learning studies have tested infants of 6–8 months, an age at which native phonetic categories have not yet developed. Here, three experiments test infants of 10 months to help illuminate perceptual ability following perceptual reorganization. English‐learning infants did not change discrimination in response to nonnative speech sound distributions from either a voicing distinction (Experiment 1) or a place‐of‐articulation distinction (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, familiarization to the place‐of‐articulation distinction was doubled to increase the amount of exposure, and in this case infants began discriminating the sounds. These results extend the processes of distributional learning to a new phonetic contrast, and reveal that at 10 months of age, distributional phonetic learning remains effective, but is more difficult than before perceptual reorganization.     

The additional cost of disability: a new measure and its application to sensory impairment

This article introduces a method using consensual budget standards to estimate additional costs incurred by households that include disabled people with specified impairments. The article reports on a first application of this to UK single adults with sensory impairments. Using the Minimum Income Standard method, the research aims to identify the cost of disability by working with groups of disabled people to agree what additions to minimum budgets for non-disabled people are required for someone with a given impairment. This provides a more tangible account of the cost of disability than economic analysis of living standards achieved by disabled and non-disabled people, and adds to surveys of actual spending on additional items, which do not account for unmet need. The research on vision and hearing impairment yields new insights into costs arising from the way disabled people live their everyday lives, not just from spending on adaptations and equipment.     

ECONOMIC GROWTH REGRESSIONS FOR THE AMERICAN STATES: A SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

We use extreme-bounds analysis to assess the sensitivity of numerous control variables identified in the state growth literature. We employ annual panel data on the American states to identify which variables are robust to small changes in the conditioning information set. The results provide a set of core variables as a starting point for future research that relies on state growth regressions. The findings also demonstrate that several important conclusions in the literature depend on how variables are measured. ( JEL R11, O23, C23, 018)     

The Effect of Negative and Positive Childhood Divorce Experiences on Professional Performers

The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth analysis of divorce by comparing levels of depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and availability of resources between professional performers who were children from divorces considered negative, divorces considered positive or neutral, and professional performers raised in 2-parent households. The results of this study indicated that performers raised in divorced families reported more depression, more anxiety, and lower levels of self-esteem than those who were raised in intact families. Additionally, results indicated that those who were raised in neutral to positive divorced families reported less depression, less anxiety, and higher levels of self-esteem than did those stemming from negatively divorced families. Implications for treatment and directions for future research are presented.     

Challenging the gendered rhetoric of success? The limitations of women‐only mentoring for tackling gender inequality in the workplace

Mentoring is widely acknowledged to be an important contributor to women's career success and progression, but women often struggle to access mentoring networks that can help sponsor and develop their careers. Formal mentoring programmes designed specifically for women help overcome this challenge, but such schemes may at the same time reinforce masculine discourses which position women as deficient in relation to the invisibly male norm that is implicit within contemporary working practices. Drawing on a formal women‐only mentoring programme built on gender‐positive goals to empower women to ‘be the best they can be’ within the events industry, this article considers the extent to which such programmes can both challenge and reproduce gendered discourses of business and success. Interviews with mentors and mentees illustrate how such programmes make gender visible within business and individual careers, but masculinist underpinnings of organizational discourses remain invisible, unacknowledged and thus largely unchallenged.     

Do American mothers use self-employment as a flexible work alternative?

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper provides evidence that self-employment is a quantitatively important work alternative that American mothers use to gain workplace flexibility....