Multi-tool accessibility assessment of government department websites:a case-study with JKGAD

Purpose: Nature of being accessible to all categories of users is one of the primary factors for enabling the wider reach of the resources published through World Wide Web. The accessibility of websites has been analyzed through W3C guidelines with the help of various tools. This paper presents a multi-tool accessibility assessment of government department websites belonging to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. A comparative analysis of six accessibility tools is also presented with 14 different parameters.

Materials and methods: The accessibility analysis tools used in this study for analysis are aChecker, Cynthia Says, Tenon, wave, Mauve, and Hera. These tools provide us the results of selected websites accessibility status on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 and 2.0.

Results: It was found that there are variations in accessibility analysis results when using different accessibility metrics to measure the accessibility of websites. In addition to this, we have identified the guidelines which have frequently been violated. It was observed that there is a need for incorporating the accessibility component features among the selected websites. This paper presents a set of suggestions to improve the accessibility status of these sites so that the information and services provided by these sites shall reach a wider spectrum of audience without any barrier.

• Implications for rehabilitation

• The following points indicates that this case study of JKGAD websites comes under Rehabilitation focused on Visually Impaired users.

• Due to the universal nature of web, it should be accessible to all according to WCAG guidelines framed by World Wide Web Consortium.

• In this paper we have identified multiple accessibility barriers for persons with visual impairment while browsing the Jammu and Kashmir Government websites.

• Multi-tool analysis has been done to pin-point the potential barriers for persons with visually Impaired.

• Usability analysis has been performed to check whether these websites are suitable for persons with visual impairment.

• We provide some valuable suggestions which can be followed by developers and designers to minimize these potential accessibility barriers.Based on aforementioned key points, this article helps the persons with disability especially Visually Impaired Users to access the web resources better with the implementation of identified suggestions.

     

Universalism,universal design and equitable access to the built environment

Purpose: The concept of universal design (UD) has acquired global significance and become orthodoxy of what is presented as the very best of design practice. This is despite limited evaluation of the theoretical content of the concept. This article seeks to redress this shortfall in knowledge by providing a critique of the theoretical and conceptual components that underpin the principles of universal design.Method: Commentary.Results: The content of UD appears to be reductive and functionalist, with an appeal to discourses of technical flexibility, or the notion that the problems confronting disabled people by poorly designed built environments may be redressed by recourse to technical and management solutions. UD is characterized by its advocation of the marketization of access as the primary means to ensure the accessibility of products, including the built environment. This has the potential to reduce the “right to access” to a right to be exercised through a market presence or transaction. There is also lack of clarity about what advocates of UD understand universalism to be, as illustrated by evidence of some ambivalence towards specialist or particular design solutions.Conclusions: UD provides a useful, yet partial, understanding of the interrelationships between disability and design that may limit how far inequalities of access to the built environment can be overcome.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Creating universally designed places is integral to rehabilitation.

• Approaches to universal design (UD) focus, primarily, on the development and application of technologies and techniques to ensure environments are accessible. UD appears to be a technology-led movement.

• Users’ socio-cultural attitudes and values, in shaping behaviour towards, and interactions with, technology and physical design, may be less than wholly integrated into programmes to create universally designed environments.

• UD subscribes to a model of professional expertise that may limit the role of users in influencing approaches to rehabilitation.

• Before UD is used as the basis for rehabilitation, more research is required to identify the values shaping its principles, to evaluate how far they represent the most coherent approach to creating an accessible built environment.

• UD supports market mechanisms as a primary means to create accessible environments and reduces rights to access to a right to be exercised through a market presence or transaction.

     

Drafting standards on cognitive accessibility: a global collaboration

Purpose: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working on accessibility of products to support people with cognitive impairment. Working Group 10, within the technical committee 173 (assistive products for persons with disability) was formed in 2014 to draft standards for assistive products that support people with cognitive impairment.

Method: This article explains the scope and purpose of the working group and the context for its formation, and describes the plans and process for drafting and publishing new international standards.

Results: The proposed suite of standards is presented, with examples from a draft standard on daily time management. It draws on international research evidence for the effectiveness of assistive products designed to support time management in people with cognitive impairment. Examples of assistive products and their key features are provided based on domains of time as defined in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health for Children and Youth (ICF-CY).

Conclusions: The proposed standards will provide design recommendations for features and functions that increase the accessibility of products used by people with cognitive impairment. They are intended to be used by designers, manufactures, educators and services providers, to facilitate their commitment to inclusion and demonstrate their willingness to work with accessibility regulation.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• New standards based on universal design (UD) principles can guide the design of more user-friendly assistive products for people with cognitive impairment.

• Greater usability of assistive products, whether mainstream or specially-designed, will make it easier for practitioners to find and introduce assistive solutions to individuals with cognitive impairment.

• Greater usability of assistive products for daily time management can decrease the need for user training and support and enable participation.

     

Exploring accessibility issues of a public building for the mobility impaired. Case study: interstate bus terminal (ISBT), Vijayawada,India*

Right to access in the built environment creates equal and nondiscriminatory opportunities to a person with disabilities in order to move freely around and interact positively without hindrance and barriers. The objective of the study is to understand the existing accessibility related issues and implementation of guidelines and standards for public buildings. The technical verification using onsite and offsite access audit format for current provision of facilities in the internal and external environment has been carried out with the format prepared in reference to Central Public Works Department (CPWD) accessibility guidelines for mobility impaired and elderly and American Disability Act (ADA) guidelines. The access audit format included parameters like accessibility, safety, security, comfort and convenience and it addresses the barriers faced by wheel chair users, people with crutches, prosthetics and with non-assistive devices. The study addressed accessibility compliance in three zones of the building with initiation from parking area zone, inside the building, and area outside the building premises. The findings highlight the environmental barriers encountered by mobility impaired people and represented graphically in the layout plan and physical effort required to overcome the challenges in the built environment. The overall accessibility compliance is 42% in the interstate bus terminal.

• Implications for rehabilitation

• The study identifies the environmental limitations, human and technologically facilitators with the help of Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and American Disability Act (ADA) guidelines (1990).

• It highlights barriers for mobility-impaired users, by demonstrating in a spatial layout and the means to facilitate easy access with minimal frustration, stress and with less physical effort.

• It demonstrates the need for preparation of separate guidelines for making the existing types of buildings to be access and disabled-friendly.

• New accessibility guidelines shall be prepared by incorporating concepts like such as relative accessibility into new bus terminal buildings.

• Guidelines help the disabled in the process of rehabilitation and develop inclusiveness not rather than alienation.

     

Producing boundary-breaking texts on disability issues: the personal politics of collaboration

Purpose: This article explores the reflection on a process of inter-collaborative team work to produce a photographic book on caregivers’ experiences of parenting their disabled children. The team of authors consisted of members with diverse backgrounds, including media studies, social science and photography. The purpose of this article was to explore and gain a deeper understanding of the process of boundary breaking, one which is important if we are to develop new knowledges and new ways of thinking about disability. Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with all contributors to the book. Results: Themes emerging from the interviews include the existence of different worlds, crossing boundaries, questions about expertise, conflicting hopes and expectations, and the ethics of anonymity. Conclusion: An account of the anxieties, the frustrations and rewarding aspects of the collaboration is provided. We conclude that “us” and “them” categorization permeates our thinking. It characterizes some of the most simplistic thinking in the world of disability – able-bodied vs. disabled. In reality, there are no such categories, we all reside along a highly differentiated continuum of changing states of impairment and health. If we open ourselves up to this reality, we can meet one another and draw on one another’s knowledge and experience.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Collaboration between able-bodied researchers and disabled people and their families holds the potential for producing new perspectives on disability and rehabilitation.

• These collaborations may be emotionally challenging and they hold possibilities for a range of conflicts.

• Dealing with these challenges conflicts openly and honestly may lead to a deeper understanding of the issues at stake in disability and rehabilitation.

• We need more examples of reflection on innovative collaborative processes.

     

Qualities of life design measures with chronic illness or disability

Purpose: Rehabilitation assessment data influence decisions for the design of preferred lifestyles with a chronic illness or disability (CID). As a result, careful consideration of the source, type and scope of these data is needed in selecting appropriate procedures for their collection and use. This article proposes three essential qualities of data to assess in life design counselling with CID.

Method: A narrative analytical review approach is applied to synthesize findings from the research on person-oriented approaches to rehabilitation assessments. In addition, illustrative life design data on preferred community living solutions with CID for rehabilitation clients (n = 68) are presented. The concept of life design foregrounds the narrative analytical review on essential qualities of rehabilitation assessments to support life choices with disability.

Results: The evidence from a narrative synthesis of the person-oriented assessment literature and community living study suggests that effective life design with CID is enhanced with person-centric, resource enabling and participation focused data. Data that prioritizes personal values for participation enable persons with a disability jurisdiction in their life design choices.

Conclusion: Life design is a robust concept to understand the purposes for which rehabilitation assessment data are gathered, and the essential qualities for those data. When life design measures have person-centric qualities, people with CID are empowered to construct their own lives.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Life design is an important process and outcome for gathering rehabilitation assessment data.

• Rehabilitation assessment measures for life design are person-oriented, resource enabling and participation focused.

• People with chronic illness and disability consider their personal values important to rehabilitation assessments for community living with chronic illness or disability.

     

Functioning and disability analysis by using WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 in older adults Taiwanese patients with dementia

Background: To analyse the disability status of elderly Taiwanese dementia patients by using the World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0). Methods: We enrolled 12 126 disabled elderly (>65 years) patients with dementia during July 2012–January 2014 from the Taiwan Data Bank of Persons with Disability. Trained interviewers evaluated the standardised scores in the six WHODAS 2.0 domains. Student’s t test was used for comparing WHODAS 2.0 scores of male and female dementia patients with different age groups. Results: The study population comprised 12 126 patients; 7612 were women and 4514 were men. The WHODAS 2.0 scores showed that the dementia patients had global activity limitation and participation restriction in all domains. Dementia-induced disability was prominent in male patients in all of the domains of the WHODAS 2.0. The domains of life activities, getting along with people and cognition were more strongly affected than the other domains. However, women experienced more rapid functional decline than men did as they aged. Conclusion: The data analysed in this large-scale, population-based study revealed crucial information on dementia-induced disability in elderly patients on the basis of the WHODAS 2.0 framework.

• Implications for rehabilitation

• Dementia patients have global functional disability in all domains of WHODAS 2.0 and multidisciplinary team is needed for rehabilitation programme intervention for these patients.

• When considering the rehabilitation resource and strategy, the domains of cognition, activities of daily living and life activities should be focussed.

• When dementia patients aged 65–75 years old, male patients got more restriction of function than female and more medical resource allocation for disabled male patients is recommended.

• With ageing, female dementia patients exhibited more rapid functional decline than male patients did and more budget about rehabilitation for maintain functional and dementia progression is crucial for female patients.

     

Clinical psychology and disability studies: bridging the disciplinary divide on mental health and disability

Abstract

Purpose: Clinical psychology and disability studies have traditionally occupied very different academic, philosophical and political spaces. However, this paper aims to illustrate the positive consequences and implications of attempts to understand and bridge this disciplinary divide. Method: A narrative review format was used with evidence selected pragmatically as opposed to systematically. The construction of the argument determined the evidence selected. Results: The concept of psycho-emotional disablism, which originated within disability studies, is argued to be a useful concept to bridge the divide between understandings of distress from both disability studies and clinical psychology perspectives. However, this can be usefully augmented by psychological research on the mechanisms through which disablism can affect individuals. Conclusion: Perspectives from both disability studies and clinical psychology can be usefully combined to bring important new perspectives; combined, these perspectives should help – on theoretical, service and social levels – to improve the mental health of disabled people.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• Mental health is an important determinant of overall health-related quality of life and psychological therapy should be available for those disabled people who would value it.

• Psychological therapists working with disabled people should be more aware of the challenging social context in which disabled people live.

• Understandings of distress should not just include individual factors but also incorporate the psychological impact of stresses caused by societal barriers preventing inclusion.

• Psychologists should be more willing to work and engage at a societal and political level to influence change.

     

Are web-based questionnaires accepted in patients attending rehabilitation?

Purpose: The aim of the present paper was to study preferences for web based self-administered questionnaires (web SAQs) vs. paper-based self-administered questionnaires (paper SAQs) and to evaluate the feasibility of using web SAQs in patients referred to cardiac, lung, occupational and cancer rehabilitation programs.

Methods: The patients were approached by mail and given the choice to answer the compulsory SAQs either on paper or on a web-based platform.

Results: Hundred and twenty seven out of 183 eligible patients (69.3%) were willing to participate and 126 completed the study. Web SAQs were preferred by 77.7%, and these patients were significantly younger, more often cohabiting and tended to have higher level of education than paper SAQ users. Mean number of data missing per patient was less among the web SAQ users than the paper SAQ users (0.55 vs. 2.15, p?Conclusions: Web SAQs were well accepted among the patients scheduled for rehabilitation, led to less missing data and considerable cost savings related to human resources. Patients referred to rehabilitation should be offered the choice to complete self-administered questionnaires on internet platforms when internet access is common and available.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• The high acceptability of web-based self-administered questionnaires among rehabilitation patients suggests that internet platforms are suitable tools to collect patient information for rehabilitation units.

• Web-based modes of patient data collection demonstrate low number of missing data and can therefore improve the quality of data collection from rehabilitation patients.

• Use of web-based questionnaires considerably reduces administrative costs of data collection in rehabilitation settings compared to traditional pen and paper methods.

     

Contemporary vocational rehabilitation in Australia

Abstract

Purpose: There is a strong connection between disability and decreased participation rates in the Australian labour market. Australian government policy recognises vocational rehabilitation as a key strategy to increase employment rates of people with disabilities. Methods: This paper examines current Australian disability employment policies and practices. It also reviews vocational rehabilitation competency research to identify knowledge and skill domains central to quality service provision, and explores the delivery of tertiary level vocational rehabilitation education. Results: Policy changes in Australia over the last decade have been aimed at addressing the unsustainable increase in disability benefits. In this context vocational rehabilitation services continue to be viewed as crucial in assisting people with disabilities to maintain employment and reduce disengagement. Competencies research has consistently identified vocational counselling, personal counselling, professional practice and case management as central to quality vocational rehabilitation service provision. Two competencies identified in recent research, workplace disability case management and workplace interventions and program management, reflect the centrality of vocational rehabilitation to disability management. Conclusions: Changes in the policy environment to reduce the number of disability pension recipients will inevitably lead to an increased demand for trained vocational rehabilitation personnel. Given the development of strong accreditation standards for vocational rehabilitation education and practice that underpin the provision of tertiary level rehabilitation counselling training programs, professionally qualified rehabilitation counsellors are ideally placed to address the complex employment needs of people with a disability.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• It is important to understand changes that may occur in policy environments in terms of their impact on vocational rehabilitation service delivery for people with disabilities.

• Variable levels of training in the vocational rehabilitation sector result in people with complex needs not consistently receiving the services they need to access and maintain employment.

• Practitioners need to focus increasingly on individualized service delivery where the client has significant control over decisions about their rehabilitation program.

     

Predictors of multidisciplinary treatment outcome in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain

Abstract

Purpose: The present study aimed to identify predictors of rehabilitation outcome for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) and psychological problems. Methods: A retrospective cohort study including 230 adult patients with CMP admitted for multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation. Potential predictors were patient characteristics, duration of complaints, baseline functioning, pain, personality, coping style, fear of movement, psychological distress and type of treatment. Outcome measures were physical functioning, mental health, pain and patient-reported effect. Multiple (logistic) regression models were used to identify predictors. Results: Patients who were more disabled and patients with more pain benefitted more from the rehabilitation treatment than less disabled patients or those with less pain. Age, work status, vitality, depression and coping style also predicted outcomes significantly. The models explained between 27 and 80% of the outcomes. There was an interaction between type of treatment, work status and the baseline pain score as regards the outcome in terms of pain. Conclusions: No strong predictors of treatment outcome were found other than the baseline scores of the respective outcome variables. More disabled patients and patients with more pain benefitted more from the rehabilitation program. Other predictors improved the prediction models slightly.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• It remains challenging to correctly predict the outcome of treatment from patients’ baseline sociodemographic and psychological characteristics; predictors other than baseline scores of the outcome variables are only slightly associated with treatment outcome.

• Patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and poor physical functioning or mental health benefit most from pain rehabilitation.

• Older patients benefit less from a pain rehabilitation program than younger patients in terms of physical functioning.

• Pain reduction during a pain rehabilitation program is greatest in patients with high pain intensity who are not at work at the start of the rehabilitation program.

• Coping style influences the outcome of rehabilitation of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

     

“This is my way”: reimagining disability,in/dependence and interconnectedness of persons and assistive technologies

Purpose: Postmodernism provides a radical alternative to the dominant discourses of Western societies that emphasize autonomy and independence. It suggests a reimagining of the relationship between the self and the body and the increasingly blurred boundaries between biology and machine. The purpose of this article is to explore in/dependence through a discussion of interconnectedness of persons and assistive technologies. Key messages: Drawing on postmodern theories, we discuss the interconnections inherent in disability experiences through the case example of Mimi, an adolescent girl with severe physical disabilities. We consider how Mimi, her assistive technologies and her parents can be viewed as assemblages of bodies/technologies/subjectivities that together achieve a set of practices. An examination of these various couplings suggests different understandings of disability that open up possibilities for multiple connections and reimagines dependencies as connectivities. Conclusions: Connectivity can be embraced to explore multiple ways of being-in-the-world for all persons and problematizes the goals of independence inherent in rehabilitation practices.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• “Dependency” has a negative social connotation that is challenged by postmodern ideas of dynamic connectivity.

• Connectivity offers an alternative lens for conceptualizing relationships between disabled people, their technologies and caregivers.

• Connectivity suggests a rethinking the goals of independence inherent in rehabilitation practices.

     

The role of occupational therapy in vision rehabilitation of individuals with glaucoma

Abstract

Purpose: Specific to individuals with glaucoma: (1) provide an overview of the role of occupational therapists (OTs) as part of the vision rehabilitation team, (2) outline evaluation and intervention approaches provided by OTs, and (3) summarize the evidence to support those intervention approaches. Methods: Literature on vision rehabilitation and the typical practice patterns of OTs working with individuals with glaucoma are reviewed and the occupational therapy process is applied to evaluation and intervention approaches. The evidence which supports intervention approaches for individuals with glaucoma is presented. Results: The strength of the evidence to support common intervention approaches employed by OTs is weak or inconclusive; many studies lack quality methodological rigor. Moderate evidence supports patient education programs and strong evidence supports problem-solving and self-management strategies; this evidence is based on a limited number of studies. Conclusion: The prevalence of eye diseases is increasing; knowledge of how visual impairment affects disability will inform resource allocation and development of rehabilitation programs that address the unique needs of individuals with glaucoma. Rehabilitation specialists are key members of the healthcare team aligned to proactively recognize and develop comprehensive rehabilitation programs to maximize individuals’ function, quality of life and independence in everyday living.

• Implications for Rehabilitation:

• Glaucoma is one of the four major eye diseases that may result in visual impairment leading to disability.

• Research supports intervention approaches and vision rehabilitation techniques used by occupational therapists to optimize the health and well-being of individuals with glaucoma.

• Rehabilitation specialists are key members of the healthcare team who need to be alert to subtle behaviors that may be indicative of visual impairment versus attributed to other client factors.

     

Participation-based environment accessibility assessment tool (P-BEAAT) in the Zambian context

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the preliminary development and validation of a potential measure for assessing the accessibility of the built environment in Zambia. It was designed to identify environmental features that present barriers to participation for people with mobility limitations (PWML) using mobility devices such as wheelchairs or crutches.Method: The Participation-Based Environment Accessibility Assessment Tool (P-BEAAT) was developed through focus group discussions and personal interviews with 88 PWML from five provinces of Zambia regarding the accessibility of their built environment. The content validity of the P-BEAAT checklist was accomplished through three phases of development with data gathered from 11 focus groups and nine personal interviews. Results: Participants described accessibility barriers which affect their participation in daily life. This information generated the P-BEAAT with 66 items describing eight environmental features with potential for identifying environmental barriers. The P-BEAAT has shown good homogeneity with Cronbach’s α score of 0.91. Conclusion: The P-BEAAT was constructed grounded in the reality of people’s experiences in Zambia for use in assessing environmental features important in the participation of daily life of PWML pertinent to developing countries. Further clinimetric testing of the properties of the P-BEAAT to establish reliability should be conducted next.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Identification of barriers in the built environment is a critical element in the process of eliminating obstacles to participation by people with mobility limitations.

• Accessible built environment facilitates the enhancement of participation of people with mobility limitations.

• The process of identifying obstacles requires audit/assessment tools to evaluate and measure the presence or absence of barriers to accessibility of the built environment.

• This study shows that the Participation-Based Environment Accessibility Assessment Tool provides a preliminary checklist to be used in identifying environmental barriers in the process of promoting lifelong participation for people with mobility limitations using wheelchairs or crutches in Zambia.

     

Representations of disability and normality in rehabilitation technology promotional materials

Abstract

Purpose: To explore the ways in which promotional materials for two rehabilitation technologies reproduce commonly held perspectives about disability and rehabilitation. Method: Our analysis was informed by critical disability studies using techniques from discourse analysis to examine texts (words and images) and their relation to social practices and power. Using this approach, promotional materials for (a) hearing aid and (b) robotic gait training technologies were interrogated using three central questions: (1) Who are represented? (2) What is promised? and (3) Who has authority? Results: Messages of normalization pervaded representations of disabled children and their families, and the promises offered by the technologies. The latter included efficiency and effectiveness, progress and improvement, success and inclusion, and opportunities for a normal life. Conclusions: Normalization discourses construct childhood disability through texts and images. These discourses reinforce pervasive negative messages about disability that are taken up by children and families and have ethical implications for clinical practice. Rehabilitation has largely focused on “fixing” the individual, whereas broadening the clinical gaze to the social dimensions of disablement may lead to a more sensitive and informed approach within family-clinician discussions surrounding these advanced technologies and the use they make of promotional materials.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• Awareness of the potential effects of implicit and explicit messages about disability in promotional materials may lead to a more sensitive and informed approach within family-clinician discussions surrounding rehabilitation technologies.

• In practice, it is important for rehabilitation professionals to remember that parents’ and children’s values and beliefs are shaped over time, and parents’ and professionals’ perspectives on disability strongly influence how disabled children internalize what disability means to them.

     

“Tell me what you want,what you really really want….”: asking people with multiple sclerosis about enhancing their participation in physical activity

Purpose: This paper provides a review of research that emphasizes the importance of listening to the people whom health professionals serve when promoting participation and engagement in rehabilitation. We report on the development of an approach aiming to optimize long-term adherence in physical activity for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). This approach was very different to those based on current evidence-based exercise recommendations, although the objectives for both approaches were similar. Key message: We argue that only by ensuring that people living with chronic disability not only have a voice but a voice that is listened to, can health professionals truly engage in evidenced-based practice that works in application and meets the needs, desires and capabilities of people with MS and other chronic health conditions.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Participation in physical activity is important for people living with chronic disability to maintain long-term health and well-being and prevent secondary complications of disability.

• To truly engage in evidenced-based practice the needs, desires and capabilities of the people for whom the intervention is targeted need to be considered and addressed.

• Service development and refinement which draws on perspectives of people living with chronic disabling conditions may enhance longer term adherence.

     

Impact of a film portrayal of a police officer with spinal cord injury on attitudes towards disability: a media effects experiment

Abstract

Purpose: The portrayal of disabled people in the media can influence the public’s perception of disability in both positive and negative ways. In this article, an experimental before and after design is used to determine the effects of a short film on the attitudes of non-disabled and disabled persons concerning employment and productivity of persons with disabilities.

Method: Three questions were posed to 480 study participants prior to and following a short film featuring a police officer with paraplegia. Linear mixed models were used to assess the effects of time point and disability status on the responses.

Results: The non-disabled participants’ ratings of eligibility for employment of a paraplegic man and estimates of the employment rate of disabled people were significantly enhanced following the film. Nevertheless, the film had no significant effects on the ratings given by participants with disabilities in terms of eligibility, employment rate or productivity.

Conclusions: This investigation highlights the potentially important influence of media portrayal and coverage of people with disabilities on attitudes of the public concerning disability.

• Implications for Rehabilitation

• Restrictions in participation may result from an interaction of persons with impairments with an environment that is dominated by negative attitudes towards disability

• The portrayal of disabled people in the media can influence the public’s attitudes towards disability in both positive and negative ways

• In this experimental study, attitudes of the general public were significantly improved following viewing a short film featuring a positive media portrayal of a police officer with paraplegia