Students’ voices: reflections of three young adults with cerebral palsy on factors facilitating their completion of mainstream schooling in South Africa

ABSTRACT

In South Africa most children with physical disabilities, including cerebral palsy, are still excluded from mainstream education. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a few successes and hear the voices of students themselves in exploring factors that facilitated their successful completion of mainstream schooling in Cape Town. This complements the more frequently documented accounts of barriers to education, from the perspectives of teachers and/or parents and in other countries. Three young adult participants with cerebral palsy were recruited through volunteer sampling. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis led to the identification of three superordinate themes, ‘Treat me the same, but treat me differently’, ‘Good communication is vital’ and ‘Ons gee om’ [Afrikaans for ‘We care’]. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) was used to frame the discussion. Practical recommendations for specific stakeholder groups were identified, which may be transferable to other contexts despite the unintentionally skewed all female sample in terms of gender and middle socio-economic class.

KEYWORDS:

• Appreciative inquiry
• physical disability
• facilitating factors in inclusive education
• International Classification of Functioning
• disability and Health (ICF)
• Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants for sharing their stories; the Stellenbosch University Division of Health Systems and Public Health for article writing support and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosemary Luger

Rosemary Luger (M) is a registered occupational therapist working in the field of disability and rehabilitation studies and inclusive education. She is involved in part-time teaching and supervising at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch University and spends the majority of her time as a clinician working alongside community development workers in under-resourced communities for the Chaeli Campaign, a non-profit organisation in South Africa.

Martha Geiger

Martha Geiger (PhD) is a registered speech-language therapist with a passion for increasing the participation of children with severe disabilities in under-resourced communities. Her work at the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, includes teaching and supervising student research in diverse aspects of disability and rehabilitation, and applied research.

Marcia Lyner-Cleophas

Marcia Lyner-Cleophas (Phd) is a registered Educational Psychologist employed as the head of the Disability Unit at the Centre for Student Counselling and Development, Student Affairs, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.