Perceptions of Body Image of Women with Blindness

Edina Csernák ELTE Barczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs Education  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4269-5691

Judit Gombás Institute for the Methodology of Special Education and Rehabilitation ELTE Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs Education https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0004-3575

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.1.1.38

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Body dissatisfaction is a general concern from teenage years onwards, and is especially characteristic in the population of young women all over the world.

Objectives: This qualitative research sought to find answers to how young (aged 18-30) women with congenital or acquired blindness perceive their body image (BI), and how they get information about the appearance of others.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve blind women, aged 18-30 years. Verbatim interview transcripts were analysed independently by both first and second author, following guidelines of constructivist grounded theory (CGT). Coding was conducted in accordance with Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) procedure: transcripts were analysed with open, axial and finally with selective coding.
Results: Findings confirm that feedback from important others, especially negative feedback, greatly influences young women with blindness in developing their BI, and that for many it is a concern to what extent they should internalise negative remarks which are related to their appearance.
Conclusion: Since feedback and verbal information from others are essential for women with blindness in trying to understand what they and others look like, it is important for professionals, parents and for the women themselves to understand how vulnerable they may be to the criticism of others.

Keywords: blindness, body image, constructivist grounded theory, important others

Full Text PDF

Role of gender and age in the cooperation between parents of people with intellectual disabilities and professional staff in care centres

Metka Novak CUDV Draga, Draga 1, 1292 IG, Slovenia
Majda Končar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.1.1.39

ABSTRACT

Introduction: understanding factors that influence the cooperative relationship between parents of people with intellectual disabilities and professional staff comes from understanding how parents and staff function and, on this basis, from understanding their abilities and skills reflected in their interactions and cooperation.

This paper presents some results of a broader study which examined:

The aim or research question is how the level of the cooperative relationship between the parents of persons with moderate, severe and profound learning disabilities and the professional staff of Training, Occupation and Care Centres in Slovenia is correlated to the age and gender of parents, and the age and gender of staff. In addition, the study focused on investigating how the gender and age of parents and staff correlates with their inclusion in support groups.

Methods: the sample comprised 296 randomly selected parents and 298 randomly selected professional staff. The statistical method of two-way analysis of variance was applied to establish the differences in the level of the cooperative relationship given the gender and the age of the parents and staff.

Results: the results confirmed differences relative to the age of the male staff, namely, that with their age the degree of co-operation relationship with parents increases and that fathers are statistically significantly less involved in support groups than mothers.

Conclusions: we draw attention to certain concepts associated with a successful cooperative relationship, helping to better understand this relationship and seek new possibilities for more effective cooperation between the parents of PID placed in centres and the staff employed at these centres in Slovenia.

Keywords: gender, age, parents of people with intellectual disabilities, professional staff, cooperation

Full Text PDF

Assessing adults with neuroatypical conditions suspected of having dementia

Matthew P. Janicki

University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Disability and Human Development
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1053-1748 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.1.1.41

ABSTRACT

Dementia is increasing as nations’ populations across the world age and older adults survive in increasing number. Dementia has various etiologies and forms of expression thus accurate diagnosis is always a challenge. Detection of any adult-age cognitive impairment in health care settings is difficult in general but can be especially challenging among adults with neuroatypical or neurodivergent conditions (NACs). Most clinical guidelines/protocols applicable to the general population for assessing mild cognitive impairment or dementia do not include considerations when assessing adults with NACs. This article addresses the obstacles to early detection and assessment of adults with NACs and recounts what one national group undertook to raise awareness of this obstacle. These conditions often present assessment challenges as adults with NACs often have problems with comprehension, oral communication, motor task performance, recognition of assessment related visuals, and comfort in testing situations. Clinicians assessing adults with NACs face challenges due to an inappropriateness of using standardized dementia assessment measures, are often untrained or unfamiliar with discerning pre-existing conditions from new cognitive impairment and are uninformed as to how to adapt the testing situation. The investigation into NACs and dementia assessment lead to a series of recommendations to raise awareness among clinicians, seek to enlist professional organizations in adapting existing instruments, and increase research into NACs and dementia.

Keywords: assessment, dementia, intellectual disability, neuroatypical conditions, protocols

Full Text PDF

A COST Action to address challenges facing people with intellectual disabilities accessing cancer prevention and response services across Europe – Introducing CUPID - Cancer- Understanding Prevention in Intellectual Disabilities.

John Wells 

School of Health Sciences, South East Technological University, Waterford, Ireland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9560-8945
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.1.1.46

ABSTRACT

COST Actions are grants provided by the European Union to support the establishment of networks of expertise to explore and address a scientific or social issue that impacts across Europe. This article introduces and describes one such action that started in October 2022 - CUPID - will address issues of policy and equity of access to cancer prevention initiatives by people with intellectual disabilities compared to the general population in Europe. With 82 individual members drawn from 30 countries CUPID will establish an interdisciplinary network of stakeholders representing carers, service providers, advocacy groups, educators, healthcare professionals, researchers and people with intellectual disabilities. The CUPID COST Action will be implemented over four years and will identify what needs to be addressed by the European Union and health and social services to improve cancer prevention among people with intellectual disabilities.

Keywords: Intellectual disabilities, COST Action, Cancer prevention, CUPID

Full Text PDF

How to establish electronic, scholarly, open access and peer-reviewed journal in small country

Vladimir Trajkovski 

Institute of Special Education and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Philosophy, University "Ss. Cyril and Methodius", Skopje, Macedonia

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8369-9501
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.1.1.1-11

ABSTRACT

Introduction: publishing an electronic, peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal in a small country is really hard work. The advancement of electronic journals during recent years has given professionals in academia a powerful new tool to support learning and research.

The purpose of this article is to provide some guidelines about creating electronic, scholarly, open access and peer-reviewed journal in small country through the example of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Methods: An analysis of relevant literature, sources from the Internet and published literature, personal experience and observations of the author as editor-in-chief in two similar journals previously.

Findings: a new modern academic journal should be open access, peer-reviewed, with international editorial board, having staff who work very dedicatedly. The journal should be set it up on OJS platform, using Creative Commons license for authors and DOI numbers for the articles. Plagiarism detection is a prevention of publication ethics violation. Journal editors should make additional efforts to index journal in lot of scholarly databases and to intend to increase the visibility. Sharing journal content on social media has become an important instrument and platform for editors and researchers as well.

Conclusions: Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (JHRS) is a multidisciplinary peer reviewed, international, electronic journal. Editorial office expects your submitted articles in the following weeks and months.

Keywords: electornic, scholarly, open access, peer-review, journal, JHRS, small country

Full Text PDF

Call for Papers Vol.2, Issue 1, 2023

Respected colleagues,

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (JHRS) is a multidisciplinary, peer reviewed, scholarly, international, electronic journal. The following articles will be considered for publication: original and review articles, short report, letters to the editor, clinical experiences, survey of cases, doctoral dissertations, master of arts, editorials, rapid communications and other contributions from all the fields of health sciences, rehabilitation sciences, developmental diversities, special education, psychology, social policy, and the related sciences. 

The aim of the journal is to share and disseminate knowledge between all disciplines that work in the field of developmental diversities. All articles will be critically reviewed by at least two unknown reviewers within 2 months, but longer delays are sometimes unavoidable. All manuscripts must comply with Authors Instructions. There will be around 20 articles published per year. 

JHRS allows free access (Open Access) to its contents and permits authors to self-archive final accepted version of the articles on any OAI-compliant institutional / subject-based repository. Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is devoted to the scientific study of health disturbances and rehabilitation. The subject matter is broad and includes, but is not restricted to, findings from health, psychological, biological, educational, genetic, medical, psychiatric, and sociological studies, ethical, philosophical, and legal contributions that increase knowledge on the prevention and treatment of disability, and/or inform public policy and practice.

You are kindly invited to submit an article in our Journal. Please type them in Word format. Please use Times New Roman font with Font size 12. The manuscript can not exceed 30.000 characters with no spaces A4 format including Abstract, Tables, Figures, and References. The margins should be 2 cm from every side, and also paragraph should be 1.5 lines. The style of referencing is from APA.

You can send the articles on the following the electronic system. Registration on OJS platform is HERE.

The dead line for sending the manuscripts is February 28th 2023.

With respect,

JHRS Editor-in-Chief

JHRS newest issue 1, Volumen 1 for 2022 has already been published

Dear colleagues and readers,

I would like to inform you that 1st issue of the 1st volume of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is published online today (January 15th, 2023). A total number of 6 papers are published. Next Issue 1, Vol. 2 of JHRS for the 2023 is expected to be published until April 30th, 2023.

Accessing JHRS Online

To view a current articles which appears online, please visit this LINK.

You, your colleagues, and students will be able to view articles (Full-Text PDF and XML) and have unlimited access to the journal (JHRS is an open access, international, peer reviewed and non for profit journal).

Citing Articles Using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

When citing articles from JHRS, we encourage you to use article’s DOI in addition to traditional citation information. This is an industry standard, a link-resolving system that allows any link to remain “persistent” even if the location of the article changes at some point in the future. Hence, when you are quoting the link for an article, you should always quote the DOI rather than the URL of our home page.

Useful Online Features for Authors

Your registration in online submission (https://jhrs.almamater.si/index.php/jhrs/user/register) will enable you with continuous information connected with JHRS. We encourage you to share publications from JHRS platform and online registration with your colleagues. You can feel free to share every publication on social media.

We invite you to the content of the JHRS and we think that you will consider publishing with Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Call for papers for Vol.2, Issue 1 is open until February 28th.

Suggested topics include:

Rehabilitation Research,

Health Research,

Special Education Research,

Neuropsychological Research,

Autism Spectrum Disorders,

Medical Aspects of Disability,

Social Aspects of Disability,

Master theses and PhD theses in the field,

Book Reviews in the field.

If you have any questions or you face problems with paper submission, please feel free to contact us: editorjhrs@almamater.si

Cheers,

JHRS Editor-in-chief

Paper Promotion Tips

How to Promote Your Article after It Is Published

Congratulations on the publication of your article. Promoting your work is an important part of the post-publication process which will increase the visibility, impact and citation of your work. JHRS will support you to promote your research papers within your scientific community, as well as to a wide audience.

What You Can Do to Promote Your Article

Social Media

Share your article on various social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Mendeley, Instagram and Twitter by clicking the link on the webpage of your article. Tagging @journaljhrs as well as key people in your field might lead to retweets: Your publication may become viral on social media!

Send a short text (up to 200 characters) to the JHRS editorial assistant who was your contact for the publication of your manuscript, and she will then post it on the Journal Instagram and Twitter account.

Write a blog post to explain the meaning and possible outcomes of your research. This will lead to higher engagement of your research community.

Ask your institution or society to post your paper on their social media accounts and to include a story about your paper in their newsletters.

Link ShareShare the article link directly with colleagues and peers in your field.

Add a link to your article in your email signature.

Update your personal and institutional websites by adding the title of your article and a link to it.

Academic Research-sharing PlatformsSet up your profile on academic research-sharing platforms, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, or Google Scholar, and add a short summary of your article.

Register an ORCID author identifier and add the article information to your profile.

Deposit your article to repositories (such as those run by your university) to make your research more discoverable.

ConferencesPresent your publication at conferences in the form of a presentation or a poster. You may participate in conferences relevant for your field.

VideoProduce a video abstract that briefly introduces your article.

WikipediaFind a Wikipedia page on a topic related to your article and add a reference to your paper.

What We Do to Promote Your Article

JHRS takes a number of actions to promote and increase the visibility of your research articles.

High Visibility

All articles are immediately available worldwide under an open access license to maximize visibility.

Indexing databases receive article information from JHRS to increase readership and citations. We collaborate with Scopus, EBSCO, DOAJ and many others.

Editors and reviewers are notified as soon as your paper is published.

Articles are listed in the journal’s Table of Contents Alerts and sent to regular subscribers.

Selected articles are reprinted for their promotion at conferences and other events.

Partnering OrganizationsMetadata and other information are passed on to partnering organizations, including CrossRef, ORCID, and Publons.

Multiple Formats for Article Multiple formats are available for each article, including machine-readable XML, and PDF.

Happy New Year 2023