Socially assistive robotics and older family caregivers of young adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD): A pilot study exploring respite, acceptance, and usefulness.

Introduction: The need for caregiver respite is well-documented for the care of persons with IDD. Social Assistive Robotics (SAR) offer promise in addressing the need for caregiver respite through 'complementary caregiving' activities that promote engagement and learning opportunities for a care recipient (CR) with IDD. This study explored the acceptability and usefulness of a SAR caregiver respite program responsive to feedback from both young adults with IDD and their older family caregivers (age 55+).

The "humane in the loop": Inclusive research design and policy approaches to foster capacity building assistive technologies in the COVID-19 era.

The COVID-19 pandemic is emerging as a driver of greater reliance on wireless technologies, including intelligent assistive technologies, such as robots and artificial intelligence. We must integrate the humane "into the loop" of human-AT interactions to realize the full potential of wireless inclusion for people with disabilities and older adults. Embedding ethics into these new technologies is critical and requires a co-design approach, with end users participating throughout.

A systematic review of the psychosocial impact of emotional numbing in US combat veterans.

Context: Previous studies have linked posttraumatic emotional numbing symptoms in US combat veterans with an adverse impact in multiple important life domains.

Objectives: We updated and evaluated the evidence examining the psychosocial impact of combat-related emotional numbing, including ethnoracial and gender differences.

Method: We reviewed 1,209 articles published betwen January 2012 and 2018 and selected 24 studies for inclusion.

Telework rationale and implementation for people with disabilities: considerations for employer policymaking.

Background: Telework has been promoted as a viable workplace accommodation for people with disabilities since the 1990s, when information and communication technologies (ICT) had developed sufficiently to facilitate its widespread adoption. This initial research and accompanying policy recommendations were prescriptive in nature and frequently aimed at employers.

Objective: This article adds to existing policy models for facilitating successful telework outcomes for people with disabilities.

Community-based day-care services for people with intellectual disabilities in Georgia: a step towards their social integration.

This article discusses the role of community-based day-care services in the lives of adults with intellectual disabilities in the Republic of Georgia. The study explores the impact of this service on users' social-adaptive skills, social life and sense of happiness, comparing service users and a matched comparison group. A mixed-methods approach was used to assess the influence of day-care-centre services on social adaptation and integration.

Macro practice teaching and curriculum development from an evidence-based perspective.

This article contributes to the discourse around evidence-based practice (EBP) as an organizing principle and guiding framework for macro-practice education as it has developed in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. In examining the first five years of implementing evidence-based education at the macro level, some lessons learned are provided.

Using telework to enhance return to work outcomes for individuals with spinal cord injuries.

Return-to-work is an area of critical concern for individuals with a spinal cord injury (SCI), because of the psychological, psychosocial and economic benefits of employment. Although the majority of individuals with SCI are employed pre-injury, they are impeded from maintaining those jobs due to personal, organizational and systems level barriers. Telework, which permits home-based work through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), alleviates many of return-to-work barriers for individuals with SCI, including job demands, mobility limitations, transportation needs and fatigue imposed by medical complications.

Partnering with the 21st century workplace: leveraging workplace ecology.

The 'accessible' job market of the 1990's has given way to a challenging job market in a climate of economic uncertainty in the early Twenty-First Century. For vocational rehabilitation professionals this change requires the strategic use of workplace supports to increase the value and sustainability of work performed by people with disabilities in competitive jobs. An analytical framework for leveraging the natural supports of the workplace is provided by the workplace ecology as a bounded environment in which relationships between workers and supervisors promote learning and enhanced performance.

Denial in addiction: toward an integrated stage and process model--qualitative findings.

Focus groups were conducted at five chemical dependency treatment facilities assessing residents' (N = 65) conceptualizations of denial and the role it may have played in the pathogenesis and progression of their substance use disorders. Two of the authors read verbatim transcripts of the focus group proceedings and independently developed models of denial based on those data. The first reader identified a core set of interpersonal and attributional processes that appeared to explain why many participants did not perceive their substance abuse and associated problems as clearly aberrant and/or chose not to self-identify as alcohol or other drug dependent until late in the course of their chemical dependency.

Disability and job stress: Implications for vocational rehabilitation planning.

Because people with disabilities often experience an increased risk for physical and psychological complications of job stress, vocational rehabilitation professionals must be able to (a) identify individual and work-environmental risk factors for job stress and (b) design appropriate interventions to minimize those risk factors. The purpose of this article is to (a) present two models of occupational stress, (b) examine factors common to each of these models that are associated with employee health and well-being, and (c) suggest implications for rehabilitation planning.

Acute predictors of return to employment after traumatic brain injury: a longitudinal follow-up.

Objective: To investigate the relation between selected acute injury and patient characteristics and subsequent return to work 1 to 5 years postinjury.

Design: Longitudinal design with prospectively collected data. Data were collected on patients at the time of injury and each year postinjury for up to 5 years.