Citation

Stough LM, Ducy EMA, Kang D, Lee S. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2020; 45: e101447.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101447

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It has been 10 years since the first examination of the vulnerabilities of children with disabilities experiencing disaster [1]. In that review, only one study [2] addressed how the school experiences of students with disabilities were affected by disaster. Consequently, at that time, the review had to extrapolate from disaster research on adults with disabilities or research on children without disabilities. However, several inferences were drawn on how disasters might impact the schooling of children with disabilities. First, children with disabilities may be more affected by displacing disasters, demonstrating decreasing academic achievement or negative behavioral responses to these situa- tions. Second, losing teachers and other personnel with expertise on students with disabilities can be particularly disruptive for students who have complex instructional or health care needs. Third, disasters can destroy schools that are accessible or destroy accessibility features, such as ramps, that enable students with disabilities to access school build- ings. Fourth, diagnostic and special educational records may be lost in disaster situations, also affecting the continuity of appropriate educa- tional services. Finally, during recovery students with disabilities are often reliant on the reconstruction of physical infrastructure that would allow them to return to their home school or community. However, Peek and Stough [1] cautioned that "Given the dearth of empirical studies that actually explore how disaster affects children with disabilities in disaster, our review is necessarily speculative" (p. 1267).


Here we present a systematic examination of studies that have investigated schools and children with disabilities in the context of environmental hazards. We were especially interested in identifying developments, both empirical and conceptual, since the first discussion [1] of the educational vulnerabilities of children with disabilities impacted by disaster...

Language: en