Literacy, Disability and Quality of Life

ARCHIVE 2010: Making a Connection: Literacy, Disability and Quality of Life

We have a longstanding history with promoting the inclusion of Canadians with disabilities in all aspects of education and particularly skill development. When Making a Connection: Literacy, Disability and Quality of Life was first conceived, it was a first of its' kind program in Canada that blended the ideology of IL with Literacy within a Participatory Action Research Project framework.

Click here to download the complete final research paper

Below is an excerpt from the published final research paper:

This is the final research paper for the “Making a Connection: Literacy, Disability and Quality of Life” project, 2007-2010. The project was highly successful, in that it increased the quality of life for the vast majority of the project participants with disabilities—56 out of the 59 participants. The project also demonstrated that a non-profit, national organization could engage in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project at five locations, and through this process train pilot site Literacy Coordinators on how to do research. There were some difficulties along the way in doing the research, as is typical with PAR. However, these were solved as the project progressed.

The successes of this project will be reported in the voices of the people who participated as learners. Of special note, the five sites established partnerships with literacy providers that were ongoing throughout the project and which will continue after it ends. This report will also define key terms in the study, and then proceed to report findings and the PAR process. As the name of the project is lengthy, it is referred to throughout this final paper as “Making a Connection”.