Stephen Gilson

Theoretical Approaches to Disability Content in Social Work Education

This article presents an analysis of disability theory and content in the social work curriculum and advances a theoretically expansive approach to disability that is consistent with social work’s commitment to diversity and the elimination of oppression. A careful examination of relevant social work literature reveals that disability is generally discussed and treated from a diagnostic perspective. We suggest shifting the approach to disability content in social work curricula from one that emphasizes individual deficiency to one that addresses disability as the interaction of a medical condition or diverse conditions with disabling environments.

Multiculturalism and Disability: A critical perspective

In an effort to counter discrimination and powerlessness, the disability community has espoused sociopolitical and cultural factors as defining characteristics of disability identity. This view of disability has replaced the historical medical model of disability as a deficit, and has had important implications for social action, political agendas, legislation and overall quality of life for individuals with disabilities. This article reviews current multicultural thinking, and offers a critical view of the advantages and disadvantages of positioning disability within the emergent multicultural discourse. Implications for future thinking and action to promote equal opportunity and self-determination for persons with disabilities as a cultural group with a political agenda are then advanced.

Intravenous nicotine reduces cerebral glucose metabolism: a preliminary study.

Nicotine is self-administered by smoking tobacco products, and enhances positive mood (at least in smokers). Since most drugs of abuse decrease regional cerebral metabolic rate(s) for glucose (rCMRglc) in human subjects, we posited that administration of nicotine would similarly reduce rCMRglc. Positron emission tomography (PET) with [F-18]fluorodeoxyglucose was used to assess the effects of intravenous nicotine (1.5 mg) on cerebral glucose metabolism in six healthy male volunteers (21–38 years of age). Two PET assays (placebo and nicotine) were performed, and subjective self-reports of mood and feeling state were collected. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance. Nicotine reduced global glucose metabolism (by 9.51% of placebo control), with reductions in most of the 30 individual regions tested. Nine regions had bilateral effects that reached statistical significance (p<0.05, uncorrected for the number of regions tested), although the statistical model used did not separate these effects from a global effect. The subjects reported both positive and negative effects of nicotine on mood/feeling state. The widespread decreases in cerebral metabolism are consistent with the many effects of nicotine on cognition and mood. The findings indicate that nicotine resembles other drugs of abuse in reducing brain metabolism, perhaps by a common mechanism.

Linking the Assessment of Self-Reported Functional Capacity With Abuse Experiences of Women With Disabilities

Women with disabilities are abused at rates similar to or greater than their nondisabled counterparts. Compared with nonabused women, women abused by an intimate partner have a greater risk of being disabled or having an illness that affects their activities of daily living. Although disabled women experience similar forms of abuse to those of nondisabled women, some forms of abuse are unique to disabled women due to the limitations that the disability itself presents. This article presents a conceptual analysis of abuse of disabled women and discusses assessment procedures that can assist in identifying abuse and informing service delivery. We propose a model of abuse assessment for women with disabilities composed of three elements: traditional assessment anchored on the Power and Control Wheel that encompasses the unique forms of abuse that disabled women experience; comprehensive functional assessment through self-reporting and self-rating; and attention to heterogeneity with regard to cultural sensitivity, structure of reporting, and nature of disability.

Buprenorphine Reduces Cerebral Glucose Metabolism in Polydrug Abusers

Buprenorphine is a mixed opioid agonist-antagonist, which acts as a partial mu agonist and a kappa antagonist. The present study evaluated the acute effects of buprenorphine on cerebral glucose metabolism (CMRglc) in six human substance abusers using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, counterbalanced, crossover design. Each subject participated in two positron emission tomographic (PET) studies, 1 week apart, following the injection of buprenorphine (1 mg, intramuscularly) and placebo. Buprenorphine significantly reduced CMRglc and the regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRglc) by up to 32% in all but three of 22 bilateral and in 4 midline regions (p < .05). No region showed an increase in rCMRglc. Buprenorphine also produced miosis, respiratory depression, and subjective ratings of euphoria and sedation in comparison to placebo (p < .05). These observations extend previous findings of reduced CMRglc following acute treatment with morphine and other nonopioid euphorigenic drugs.

Redefining Abuse of Women With Disabilities: A Paradox of Limitation and Expansion

The study presented here, which relied on naturalistic design and focus-group methodology, examined the experiences of abused women with disabilities and the womens use of and need for services and resources. The study found that although disabled and nondisabled women face many of the same forms of abuse, disabled women have unique experiences that require specialized services.

Evaluation practice : how to do good evaluation research in work settings

Section 1: Beginnings 1. Introduction to Evaluation Practice: A Problem Solving Approach through Informed Thinking and Action 2. The Conceptual Framework of Evaluation Practice Section 2: Thinking Processes of Evaluation on Practice 3. Identifying Problems and Issues: Mapping and Analyzing your Territory 4. Obtaining and Organizing Information: How Do You Know? 5. Ascertaining Need: What is Needed to Resolve All or Part of the Problem or Issue 6. Examining Need with Previously Supported Approaches: Designing Deductive-Type Inquiry 7. Obtaining Information in Deductive-Type Needs Assessment 8. Ascertaining Need in Unexamined Contexts: Designing Inductive Inquiry 9. Goals and Objectives Section 3: Reflexive Action 10. Reflexive Action: What is it? 11. Thinking Processes of Reflexive Action 12. Action Processes of Reflexive Action Section 4: During and After Professional Effort: Did you Resolve your Problem, How do you Know, and How did you Share what you Know? 13. Thinking Processes in Outcomes Assessment 14. Action Processes of Outcome Research 15. Commencement: Sharing Evaluation Practice Knowledge and on to a New Problem Statement

Women with Disabilities and Experiences of Abuse

Abstract A qualitative study of disabled and non-disabled professionals and survivors of abuse revealed a range of types of abuse endured by disabled women, some of which were unique to that population. Two major themes emerged from data analysis: vulnerable beginnings and complexity of abuse. Three sub-themes are encompassed within complexity of abuse: active abuse, abuse through image, and contextual abuse by social service/legislative systems. The authors present data essential to an informed assessment and analysis of abuse that considers the person-in-environment circumstances of women with disabilities. Implications for future research and the human behavior in the social environment curriculum are discussed.

THE STUDENT BODY: THE INTERSECTION OF SPATIAL DESIGN, ARCHITECTURE, AND CULTURAL POLICY IN UNIVERSITY COMMUNITIES

Purpose – This chapter discusses a study in which we examined campus architecture, spatial design, aesthetics, and cultural policy with regard to the manner in which attributes in these visual and textual entities shape the full range of diversity of the student body or the individuals and collective group who study within the university. Methodology – This chapter presents the qualitative element of a larger multi-method inquiry. The data for this study were generated from a sample composed of eight universities in four states in the United States and of cultural policy documents from multiple universities in addition to the eight specific universities that were visited on-site. Findings – Twelve themes emerged from data derived from campus visits to eight universities representing diverse geographies and institutional structures and from analysis of the cultural policies of 30 institutions of higher education. Taxonomic analysis (analysis of the organization of themes and their relationships to one another) revealed important directional associations among the themes yielding rich findings for future theory development and testing. Implications – The findings yielded important understandings about the influence of cultural policy as reflected in the campus community, on inclusion, exclusion, and diversity. Of particular note were the unexpected thematic findings regarding the political, proprietary preferences of “disabled” groups related to space ownership and the future implications of occupying specialized designated architectures. We conclude with conceptual and methodological directions for expanding this research agenda internationally and for informing change in cultural policy and architectures on campus communities.

Child Mental Health: A Discourse Community

Over the past three decades, discursive analytic epistemologies have become central tools within the interdisciplinary field of disability studies. Particularly within the United States and Western European academic discourses, theorising disability as linguistic artefact has been potent in wrestling atypical embodiment away from its medical deficit prison and repositioning it as a socially and culturally constructed phenomenon. While vigorous and compelling, we assert that delimiting communication to discourse, conversation, and humans interacting with humans is incomplete. Rather, we propose meaning making and its productions in cultural expectations of development, normalcy, health, and illness as complex interactive discourse communities in which language, object, materiality, and interpretation dance in synergy. Given the local nature of community and its intrinsic discourse, this work, while emergent from US and UK scholarship, can be extrapolated and applied to analysis of discourse communities across the globe.