Throughout the years, I have personally witnessed children and adults being abused in various facilities. In conjunction, I, suffer from a severe case of Cerebral Palsy, had been abused as well. Most disabled children and adults, who are institutionalized, do not have loving family members to enhance the quality of their lives. This segment of the population never obtain opportunities to be mainstreamed into public school, to socialize with disabled and able-bodied peers, attend college, enter the work force, date, marry, raise children, and so on. Many children and adults do not have the ability to speak; furthermore, they cannot voice their opinions and advocate for their rights. Those, who have the ability to speak, are frightened that their living conditions will only become worse.
The employees and employers, who work at these dreadful places, tend to be so busy making wonderful impressions to the public that they become ignorant in providing good quality, custodial care for their residents. In other words, employees, who work in nursing homes, may be more interested in getting new residents to lay in their empty beds than properly feeding, bathing, and toileting their residents whom are already living in these homes. If the beds remain empty for more than a couple of weeks, the homes would be forced to close. This presents two problems. First, all the employers and employees must seek brand new jobs. Second, all the residents, currently living in the homes, must be transferred to other nursing homes. So, how does one solve this complicated dilemma?
I consider myself to be very fortunate that my loving parents raised me in spite of the societal prejudices. Being mainstreamed into public school, community college, and an university deepened my wealth of knowledge. Having opportunities to socialize with able-bodied and handicapped peers, travel a little, and attending various summer camps sharpened my communication skills. After suffering in two state institutions for eight months, I was blessed that my aging parents signed me out of these abusive facilities and were still able to physically assist me at home. Unfortunately, many aging parents have felt physically unable to assist their disabled adult-children at home; furthermore, they did not have any other choices but to send their adult-children to the state institutions.
After taking a few psychology courses at Brookdale Community College, I started to fantasize on becoming a psychologist for physically disabled young adults. Reading novels, such as Becoming A Person and A Way Of Being written by Carl Rogers inspired me to spend the next nine years working towards my Bachelors Degree in psychology. Carl Rogers was a humanistic psychologist who practiced client centered therapy during the 1960s. He strongly believed that clients would benefit tremendously through having talk therapy sessions. In other words, they would feel better by venting their feelings and thoughts to a psychologist whom would actively listen and respond in empathy instead of sympathy.
When I become an on-line consultant, I wish to practice Carl Rogers' techniques. It would be essential to actively listen to employees and employers, who work with physically disabled young adults in state institutions, efficiently respond to their emotional needs, access their work schedules, and make appropriate recommendations concerning how to provide better custodial care for their residents. physically disabled young adults and properly respond to their emotional needs. One of my suggestions would be to have the staff hire a psychologist, who has been trained to treat the physically handicapped population, to actively listen and appropriately respond to the residents with genuine concern and empathy. This psychologist must also be able to teach them how to advocate for their rights. Finally, he or she should also provide them with appropriate resources regarding educational, social, and employment services.
Some psychology professors, who taught at Monmouth University, told me, "In order to achieve this long-term goal one must attend graduate school. It is very difficult to be accepted into a traditional graduate program due to the following: One must have an outstanding GPA, take the GREs, and must attend evening classes." I was also informed that graduate programs are more likely to accept students who have written senior thesises. As time ticked away, I became discouraged because I slowly realized that enrolling in a traditional program did not suit my needs. For instance, I could not take the GREs and attend night classes due to my physical limitations. Discovering that I could attend an on-line graduate school, such as Walden University, restored my hope in being able to enhance physically disabled young adults' lives.
With this in mind, I was fully determined to write a senior thesis concerning physically disabled young adults' emotional behavior. Not only I wanted to be accepted into a graduate school, I also wanted to educate the college population that the physically handicapped are people who have psychological needs. Since my advisor specialized in children's and adolescence's emotional behavior, her eyes lit up like Christmas bulbs and she agreed to work with me. I was astonished that she showed a real interest in studying the physically handicapped population because most professors showed very little interest in exploring this "taboo" subject.
My comprehensive study involved statistically measuring females and males refusing to eat in the present, females and males refusing to eat in the past, females' and males' levels of depression in the present, females' and males' levels of depression in past, where participants lived, participants' disabilities, the quality of participants' family relationships, participants' levels of education, participants' motivation to academically succeed, participants' employment goals, participants' personal goals, and participants' educational goals. These variables were going to help me to determine if physically disabled young adults' display significant emotional behavior.
After I finally obtained my articles, writing the literature review and bibliography was easy. Based on the literature review, my study would focus on the following: Hypothesis one stated that family is essential in participants' lives. Hypothesis two said that socialization occur more in small than large groups. Hypothesis three claimed that women are more prone to be depressed than men. Hypothesis four found that females are more likely to refuse to eat than males. Hypothesis five remarked that participants have difficulties seeking employment, forming educational and professional goals. Hypothesis six concurred that women are more predictable to commit suicide than men. When my advisor finally met with me, it was such a relief finding out that I did an outstanding job on my literature review and bibliography. Then, we designed a survey that was composed of seventeen demographic, twenty depression, and six hope questions. Before electronically mailing this questionnaire to twenty discussion groups and newsgroups designed for the physically handicapped, I had to debrief the participants about who I was and why I wanted to conduct the study.
As soon I electronically mailed a formal introduction and survey, my advisor and I began receiving horrendous nasty messages from the group members. Apparently, they refused to participate in the study because they believed that I was a psychologist whom wanted to drug and institutionalized them. Their fear stemmed from knowing that most psychologists are not educated and trained to relate to the physically handicapped. In conjunction, the group owners highly suspected that I was a spammer; furthermore, they kicked me off their groups. My advisor suggested that I should stop my study because she did not know how to get me back onto the groups and she was frightened that her email privileges would be taken away.
After six months of hard work, I simply refused to give up. Moreover, I asked another psychology professor to email a character reference letter to all of the group owners. Within a week, I was allowed to rejoin all the discussion and newsgroups. Surprisingly, the group members agreed to complete my survey. The questionnaire was also distributed at two small northeastern colleges. A total of one hundred participants completed the survey.
Once I gathered my data, I should have been able to use a statistical computer program, called SPSS, to analyze the data. Before Windows '95 was installed on the university's computers, Windows 3.1 kept the computers humming. Unfortunately, Windows 3.1 did not an accessibility option to set Sticky Keys and Mouse Keys. I could not physically control a regular mouse. The only way that I could access the computer was by pecking the keyboard with my headpointer (a hat attached to a long metal rod). In order to run SPSS, one had to use the standard mouse. The computer department promised to install software onto the computers, which would have enabled me to control the mouse through the keyboard. However, nobody, in the department, performed this simple task.
As a result, I spent seven days (from 9a.m. to 9p.m.) typing one hundred rows and forty-three columns of data into a spreadsheet program. After I saved all of the data, another psychology professor took my data file and transferred it into SPSS. Once this had been completed, my advisor and I were able to analyze the data. It was extremely hard writing up the results; therefore, I asked my advisor for help. She was too busy to spend time instructing me; furthermore, I typed up the result section without knowing how to properly interpret the statistical tables. After submitting this in, my advisor finally helped me to interpret the results correctly. Then, I made the following observations: Data supported hypothesis one, which stated that family is essential in participants' lives. Data failed to support hypothesis two which claimed that socialization occur more in small than large groups. Data failed to support hypothesis three which indicated that women are more prone to be depressed than men. Data failed to support hypothesis four which suggested that females are more likely to refuse eating than males. Data supported hypothesis five which remarked that all participants experience difficulties seeking employment, forming educational and professional goals. Data failed to supported hypothesis six concurred that women are more predictable to commit suicide than men. This meant that there was a significant discrepancy between the literature review and the results.
One month later, my advisor suggested I should write a three page summary regarding my thesis and submitted to the Eastern Psychological Association for publication. In conjunction, I would had to fly to Boston and present the summary at a conference. I immediately informed my advisor that I would not be able to attend the conference due to my physical limitations. She promised me, "I shall find somebody to attend and present your summary at the conference." With this in mind, I worked extremely hard to produce a well written summary. To my surprise, EPA accepted my summary. Suddenly, my advisor told me, "You must withdraw from the Boston conference because I cannot find anybody to go in your place." A friend, from England, suggested that I should email the director of the EPA explaining the situation. As soon as I contacted the director, he said, "If you snail mail your summary to me, I will present it at the Boston conference." Moreover, I managed to do this, which was no easy task. After I officially completed my thesis which took a year and two months, I was able to lecture on it at a colloquium held at school two semesters later.
In the meantime, I taught myself how to design web pages. I was also very fortunate to have the opportunity to edit web pages for Merck on a part-time basis. This enabled me to create a personal web site, which provided information regarding physical disabilities and societal challenges of being accepted as a person with a disability. Speaking about my personal experiences has also enriched the quality of my site. Many people, from all over the world, have read and used it as a source of reference, and personally responded to me. In retrospect, I could have designed a web page concerning my thesis. In other words, this page would have included a debriefing section and the survey. If I had electronically mailed a letter stating, "Would you like to participate in a study involving physically handicapped social issues? Please, click on the following url to learn more about this study: http://home.att.net/~ysinger/study.htm", I would probably have not been called a spammer and I would probably have received better results.
To conclude, if I design a web page to promote my fees and services, I would be a successful on-line consultant.
On a professional level, I wish you the best of luck - a whole new world is opening up for on-line consulting. For the handicapped who tend to be socially isolated and often unable to receive many services your services will be good news! It is an honor and privilege to work along side of you at Walden U. Your voice is HEARD!!