Manual signs are an augmentative and alternative communication mode which enables and facilitates communication for persons with impairments in speech, language and hearing. There are different ways of teaching signs to persons with intellectual disabilities. One of them is milieu teaching, which is a method where the teaching takes place in natural settings. This method has proven to give good results in generalization and maintenance. Teaching signs to staff in groups has been shown to be effective.

The result of a short field work done in Maria Park, a place situated in the north of Helsingborg city. A comparative work, using the old S:a Maria and Maria Park. The same place, once a mental hospital, and now, at the time of the paper being written, it's a richer residential district. Is there anything left of the old mental hospital in the new community and the residents identities?.

The aim of this study was to understand how three selected football associations in three counties in Sweden work to include children and adolescents with disability in the age of 7-20 in their organization.  For this study we have used a qualitative method. The data have been collected through using semi-structured interviews with coaches and representatives from the board. When analyzing the data, we used Charles Tilly's theory Durable Inequality and research within the area of inclusion within sports, the significance of activities and the inequality within sports. The conclusions of the study showed that there was a stated lack of knowledge in the associations when it comes to their work with young people with disabilities and also in their work with the policies.

Risktaganden görs på daglig basis och vår sinnestämning ligger till grunden för många av de risktaganden vi gör och styr hur vi upplever det ställningstaganden vi ställs inför. Den här studien ämnade att undersöka huruvida det gick att påverka en individs riskbedömning med hjälp av teorin om affect heuristic samt hur mental visualisering kunde påverka en individs affekt i olika riktningar.Försöksdeltagarna bestod av 40 studenter vid Umeå universitet i åldrarna 19-35. De fick i en enkätundersökning ta del av och skatta risken för olika typer av scenarion. Resultatet från studien visade på en signifikant skillnad i förmån för mental visualisering i kontrast till resonerande av de presenterade riskscenarion, vilket stödde hypotesen om att mental visualisering kan påverka individers affekt och beslutsfattande. Studien ämnade att belysa vikten av affekt och dess inverkanöver vårt beslutsfattande och hur det går att påverka en individs affekt i olika riktningar genom att låta personen mentalt visualisera sig ett stimuli..

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 study was to examine the students' perspectives on formative assessment, partly about how students perceived the assessment in general, partly about what students' opinions were on formative assessment, and partly about students' view of how assessment could be organized to stimulate learning process.  The study consisted of qualitative interviews with six students in grades one in an upper secondary school.The survey showed that students primarily perceived assessment with summative purpose: tests and scores.  Majority of the students experienced that there were too many tests occasions.  Those high-performing students were positive to tests.  However, those lower-performing students felt more negative and became more stressful with the exams.Results showed that they were lack of experience of formative assessment.  All the six students thought that they had not got any chance to involve in the assessments process.  They realized that they had not got adequate feedback about their learning-situations.  With regard to students' wishes about how assessment could be developed in order to improve their learning, it was mainly about more and concrete feedback on tests and assignments.Two models were developed in the final discussion, which showed the author's own perception of formative and summative assessments..

Cancer was the second most common cause of death in Sweden in 2011. As the number of beds in hospitals decreases, numerous severely ill patients receive care at home. This results in family members performing important parts of the caring process. The aim of this study was to describe the caregivers' support needs from healthcare professionals when caring for an adult relative with cancer. A literature review was performed, in which results from empirical studies were reviewed and summarized.

Forskning kring arbetslöshet har ofta fokuserat på bemästringsstrategier (eng. coping strategies), men flera studier har även pekat på betydelsen av tron på den egna förmågan (eng. self-efficacy) och den kognitiva tolkningen (eng. cognitive appraisal) för valet av bemästringsstrategi. Genom att mäta individens tro på den egna förmågan, den kognitiva tolkningen och bemästringsstrategier syftar denna undersökning till att identifiera de faktorer som sannolikt leder till försämrad generell mental hälsa och längre tids arbetslöshet.

Body esteem is the affective aspect of body image, which is shaped by social experience. Compared with men, women have a more negative body image, which is more frequently correlated with depression and dysfunctional thoughts, especially in the case of eating disorders. The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in body esteem and its subcategories, and to find out whether there exists a stronger link between negative body esteem and higher levels of dysfunctional thoughts in women. The relationship between body esteem, dysfunctional thoughts and mental illness was examined. Participants were 73 college students doing social sciences and sports training educations.

The main purpose of this study was to examine how people who have felt mentally bad, describe their subjective experience of what leads to a mental well-being. The overall research questions were; how does the individual define mental well-being, how does the individual describe the turning-point during her tough period, and in what way does the individual consider that her own effort has influenced her well-being? In order to answer these questions, qualitative research interviews were conducted with persons who?ve felt mentally bad and who?ve got some kind of professional help, and who think that they have a mental well-being today. The empirical material was analyzed from a theoretical resilience perspective. The study?s result showed first of all, that there are different ways to define well-being.

The aim of this undergraduate thesis was to study what the participation in the activities of the Fontain House in Stockholm means to its members. The research questions dealt with how the members describe their participation in the activities, whether they say that it has helped them, and, in that case, in which way. Furthermore, they dealt with how the members argue about their experiences of mental illness and of social help. The study was carried out within the framework of the narrative method. As tools for analyzing the narratives, parts of An-tonovsky?s theories as well as the theoretical concepts of inclusion and exclusion as described by Madsen, were used.

The aim of this descriptive review was to elucidate how the literature describes how children of parents with mental illness experience and have knowledge about their parent?s illness. The aim was furthermore to describe how the children?s existence is affected, can be improved and why the children so often are invisible. Search through Medline (through PubMed) database and additional manual search was conducted.