Supporting People with Physical Disabilities in the Workplace: A Literature Review

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Support people with physical disabilities
<University>
Research Methods in the Social Sciences
by
<Your Name>
<Date>
<Lecturer’s Name and Course Number>

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Introduction
It is very challenging for a normal individual with proper education and social skills to
find employment in the competitive world of today. The competition is growing steadily, and
one can only assume how difficult it must be for people with disabilities to find jobs or
employment. Thus, it becomes essential to look into the issues faced by the people with
disabilities and how to improve social and workplace condition for the marginalized population.
The managers can work proactively to support people with physical disabilities and make them
feel appreciated and successful in their workplace environment.
People with disabilities( PD) constitute about 15% of the global inhabitants or stand at
about one billion people (de Guimarães, Martins. & Junior 2015, p. 1832). It would be a mistake
to ignore the social and emotions needs of such as a large population. Every individual wants to
live with dignity and avoid being a burden to others. Research on the youth with disabilities as
they transit from school to the professional world finds them to be most vulnerable. They risk
social isolation that impacts their self-esteem and self-concept (King et al. 2010, p. 104).
Constraints to sports participation among people with disabilities can arise due to location,
convenience of facilities and the costs of involvement. It is essential to see how those constraints
to sports participation can be removed (Sotiriadou. & Wicker. 2014, p. 47). It seems that people
with physical disabilities face social barriers that keep them away from enjoying equal social
rights within the society. This literature review will offer an overview of the current literature
related to how to support people with physical disabilities and overcome any hurdles. The
objective is to look for support material for the research question which is how managers can
support people with physical disabilities as well as make them feel appreciated and successful in

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their workplace environment.
Methods
This literature review and research were carried out through the online databases from
literature, publications, and websites. Peer-reviewed articles were selected from online databases
like Scopus, ProQuest, PubMed, Science Direct, and Google Scholar to gather both primary and
secondary data. Keywords like Physical disability, Managers, Support as well as Key Phrases
like Hearing impairment, handicap, speech impairment, visual disorder, Director, administrator,
head, supervisor, boss, principal, help, aid, assist, encourage, back, were used for searching the
databases. It was essential that the articles were published from 2009-2018 and targeted on
people with physical disabilities and employment conditions for them. After collecting about
twenty articles, six were selected based on their relevance to the topic and were produced for
review. Any articles that were not peer-reviewed, or unpublished or were just reviews of other
studies were excluded. The focus was kept on the relevance and the latest infers made from
reasarhe and studies on the subject.
Results and critical analysis /discussion
Disability is not a medical disorder but a social issue that needs to be handled with
sensitivity and understanding. PD are often deprived of basic opportunities in life and remain as
a marginalized section within the society. It is essential they be given equal facilities and
opportunities. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990a, b (ADA) defends the fundamental
civic rights of people with disabilities (von Schrader, Malzer, & Bruyère 2014, p. 238). Its
objective is to help create equal opportunities for qualified people with a disability. Despite such
regulations, the employment rate of such people remains significantly low. It is thus essential to

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look beneath the problem and understand the barriers faced by the PD at home as well as
workplace.
As asserted by Angela (2014, p. 980), people with disabilities face greater economic
problems and are in poor financial conditions. Special employment conditions can help these
individuals and allow them to enjoy strong financial support at least. Findings support that active
support is a must to take care of those with severe intellectual deficiency. Greater attention is
required in this area to improve care and create better preparedness of the staff management
(Graham et al. 2013, p. 263).Individuals with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities plus co-
occurring physical problems carry the risk of display aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior
and attitude by these individuals can pose as problems to their social and educational integration
within the society (Crocker, Prokić, Morin, & Reyes 2014, p. 1032). A study that examined the
link between aggression and health and mental disorders shows that these individuals carry a
higher risk of manifesting aggression. It is essential to identify such risks and develop strategies
for addressing these problems. Careful attention and consideration must be given to people with
disabilities not just when they seek educational and employment as well as their mental attitude
and health.
Being employed means a lot to any individual. He feels that others need his services and
he feels like a part of the society. However, for people with disability things are different as they
get marginalized within the competitive society looking for higher productivity, education, and
flexibility (Bomana, Kjellbergb, & Bomana 2015, p. 117). Due to several barriers towards
employment, people with disabilities find little societal support. Persons with disability are
sometimes looked upon with an indifferent and same attitude. A research was done on the Brazil
construction industry with millions of workers. The focus was on employment for people with