The aim of the study has been to explore what participation and hope means for persons with disabilities living in an institution called Horizon House, in Stellenbosch South Africa. The aim has also been to discover the South African approach to disability and how Horizon House fits into this approach. Horizon House is an institution and a protective workplace in Stellenbosch for adults whose main impairment is of an intellectual nature but there are also physical and emotional disabilities. Another aim has been to explore the perspectives of the residents. The research questions of the study are: ? What does participation imply for the residents of Horizon House?? What does Hope represent for the residents of Horizon House?? What importance can hope have for people with disabilities, in their approach towards increased participation? We travelled to South Africa during a two week period in March 2009, where we participated at the protective workplace of Horizon House.

This essay is about personal assistance for persons with considerable intellectual disabilities.The purpose with the study is: to examine personal assistance for individuals, who can`t speakfor themselves, to examine how the individuals can determine and get influence into theirassistance and how they can get help with it, to examine the role of an representative inrelation to the serviceuser´s assistance and examine if there are factors of gender in theinterviews.The chosen method is qualitative interviews.The interviews has been analysed through earlier research about personal assistance andtheoretical perspectives like: influence, integration and citizenship and discussed throughperspectives of social psychology.The main conclusions are: the influence the serviceusers can have is through persons whoknow them very well, the role of the representatives are indistinct, the serviceusers can´tdetermine their assistance themselves and need help with it from relatives, representatives,personal assistants and managers, the persons who know the serviceuser intimately are best totransform the needs to assistance. The factors of gender, are that there are more men aspersonal assistants than in the care of elderly, and the representatives are mostly men. Thepersonal assistants appreciates the time they have for the serviceuser, the work can be lonelyand demanding..

The aim with this study is to through a research summary review experiences of growth and theparents caring ability among children who has grown up with parents having intellectual disabilites,and by empirical data illustrate how these persons today describe their childhood, their parentscaring ability and other cicumstances that have affected the growth. The results from the researchsummary are then to be compared with the results from the empirical data in purpose to reviewsimilarities and discrepancies.The study has a qualitative approach and it is based on foundings from earlier research andinterviews with four women whos mothers have intellectual disabilities.In the existing research of this issue there is a clear dichotomy between whether the researchershave focused on either the children or the parents. In both perspectives there are differentconceptions about whether a person with intellectual disabilities have the capacity to care for andraise a child, as there is about how the parents intellectual disaparment affects the child.The womens stories of the childhood are obviously unique, but they also have many experiencesin common, both among themselves as with what has been found in research. Children of parentswith intellectual disabilities have been classified as a risk group, wich has been shown by reversedroles for child and parent, lack of attachment to the parents and by insufficient care. Despite thedifficulties that the women have faced, they describe many parts of their lives in positive termstoday.There seems to be other influences in addition to the parents intellectual capacity that affect theesechildrens outcomes.

There are many barriers and obstacles that need to be removed to make the urban environment more accessible for people with disabilities. There are currently no adequate tools for urban planners to assess and address these obstacles. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide powerful methods for the visualization and analysis of spatial data, including the kind of data important in studies of accessibility. This study suggests a method urban planners can use to identify accessibility obstacles and to propose future actions to fix them.A literature review was conducted to find out what has been done and what is new regarding the accessibility issues. Different methods were evaluated which in turn led to the construction of a multi-step analytical strategy.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine difficulties concerning information acquisition, use, and management experienced by graduate students in physics during their first years of research work. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were carried out with nine doctoral students. The theoretical background for analysis of the material is based on the work of Patrick Wilson, with particular focus on the concept of cognitive authority, and on that of Lars Seldén, who has proposed the idea of an information seeking career running parallel to the academic career of the researcher. Results from the interviews indicate that most of the students, in the early stages of their information seeking careers, rely to a great extent on supervisors and more experienced colleagues when identifying material needed for the research project. In a situation where information of potential relevance is abundant and where experience and focus are not yet fully developed, senior researchers function as cognitive authorities and as guides to other cognitive authorities.

Förmågan att prestera under akut eller kraftig stress är en förutsättning för en del yrken. Forskningsresultaten gällande hur stress påverkar prestation pekar åt olika håll. Denna studie undersökte sambandet mellan fysiologisk arousal och kognitiv problemlösningsförmåga under stress. Trettiotvå polisstudenter testades på Ravens test av flytande intelligens APM set II både före och efter att antingen ha sprungit i tjugo minuter eller haft en självskyddslektion på ca fyrtio minuter. Resultaten från en mixed ANOVA för beroende mätningar visade på en signifikant interaktionseffekt (F (30) = 6,547, p < 0,05) ? en ökning i prestationen hos självskyddsgruppen med arton procent och en minskning med femton procent hos löpningsgruppen.

This case study examined what impact the neurological disorder Asperger?s syndrome has on the line of reasoning about religion and spirituality. Also, the question of whether the four informants showed any tendency to use the cognitive tools calledtheory of mind (ToM), existential theory of mind (EToM) and hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD) or not was put forth. From the interviews five themes were extracted: a stereoscopical view upon the world, thoughts on physical causality, prayer used as one-way communication, spiritual agency and intentionality, as well as existential and social questions. These themes were subsequently matched with theories on ToM, EToM and HADD.

Due to progresses constantly being made in veterinary medicine combined with increasing knowledge in pet owners, the dogs of today gets older than before. The population of geriatric dogs is there for constantly growing, which makes them an important group of patients on small animal clinics and hospitals. As dogs age, so do their interior organs. Geriatric dogs are prone to several diseases and in this text the author has decided to focus on three of the most common: Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome (CDS), cancer and osteoarthritis (AO). All of these illnesses are incurable in dogs, but it is important to remember that they are still treatable.

The number of students who finished special upper secondary school for pupils with intellectual disabilities without an employment has drastically decreased over the last decades. The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of how career counselors at special upper secondary schools collaborate with the Employment Service, and how the special upper secondary school prepares their pupils for working life. The collection of data started with a national questionnaire survey which was directed to career counselors at schools.The result shows that the collaboration appears foremost in the pupils last year in special upper secondary school, and that the special upper secondary schools do not use the Employment Service's assistance to any great extent. In addition, the collaborative process consists of both inhibiting and promoting factors.The results also indicates that the collaboration between the special upper secondary schools and the local labor market can be developed more for the pupils to gain experience from working life..

This essay is a study of the government bills for a new grading scale in the Swedish schools. There have been many complaints about the current grading scale and the main problem seems to be that teachers are interpreting the criteria for certificates differently. There are two major challenges for Swedish teachers, one is how to interpret the criteria for certificates, the other one is the equality problem , students can not be sure of that two different teachers would give the same grades. The main point of the essay is to try to find out whether the new grading scale will solve this problem. To my help I have made an analysis of the bills of the Swedish government for the new grading scale.

At the Women?s House in Örebro, a children?s project has started where the work method ?Oasen? [Oasis] model has been developed by two children?s educationists. The aim of this study is, with the ?Oasen? model as a starting point, to deepen the knowledge of (1) how to meet children?s central needs while staying at a Women?s House and (2) what the ?Oasen? model may contribute to the children. The theoretical framework consists of a cognitive approach to the progress of children experiencing domestic violence and a presentation of conceptions concerning children?s needs.

Purpose: This thesis aims to study how students in upper secondary school evaluate sources in their everyday school work and how the role of the school library and librarian officiate in this context.Methodology: A web questionnaire was conducted and 155 students from different schools, with or without school library and school librarian, participated. We coded and aggregated the questionnaires according to the strategies that are used when evaluating sources, identified by Francke, Sundin and Limberg. Cognitive authority, a theory by Patrick Wilson, was also a part of our analysis. Conclusions: The study shows that students use different strategies, separately or combined, as a way to evaluate sources. The teacher is regarded as a cognitive authority and is the main influence concerning source evaluation. It also shows that the role of school libraries and school librarians, in this context, seem to be non-existent.

The object of this explorative theoretical study is to compare similarities in three perspectives for evaluation of credibility. The perspectives are the historical method source-criticism, cognitive authority and domain analysis. These perspectives, regarded as intellectual tools for critical thinking in a process of information seeking, by asking questions about credibility related to the social and theoretical context of the intellectual background, can give support in articulating which documents that gives a specific and essential answer to a question. In this sense credibility is seen as a qualitative aspect of relevance. Patrick Wilson argues that we can attain some critical independence towards cognitive authorities and the literature by investigating the social and theoretical topography of a field.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate in what ways librarians and schoolteachers can co-operate and combine their professional skills in order to help and motivate children with reading and writing disabilities, and how audio books can be useful in this work. The main source of information is interviews with teachers from ten schools in the province of Scania, southern Sweden. Those teachers, their schools and their local libraries all took part in a project spanning from 1993 to 1996, aiming at increasing the use of audio books in combination with the corresponding printed versions in work regarding the here addressed problem. This study was made with a qualitative empirical method supported by a normative theory belonging to the new institutional theory school. There are no statistical conclusions in the report.

För att utvärdera en metod för tillämpad kognitiv uppgiftsanalys, ACTA (Applied Cognitive Task Analysis), har anställda på Saab AB genomfört ACTA genom att intervjua flygförare. ACTA består av tre intervjutekniker och skapades av Klein Associates Inc. ACTA är en metod som kan användas i tillämpade sammanhang för att ta fram aspekter av experters beslutsfattande. Denna rapport redovisar en utvärdering av CDT (Cognitive Demands Table), vilket är tabeller över kognitiva krav sammanställda av datamängden insamlad i intervjuerna. Utvärderingens syfte var att avgöra huruvida praktiker kan sammanställa en CDT med högt innehåll av kognitiva poster.