Life Management of Post-Secondary Students with Disabilities

The paper constitutes an examination of life management of post-secondary students with disabilities. Eight individuals, all in attendance at a Western-Canadian university, were interviewed. The purpose was to explore life management issues and transformational outcomes of living with a disability as reported by individuals with disabilities; and whether these are, in any way, comparable to issues and transformational outcomes reported by parents living with children who have disabilities. Scorgie, Wilgosh, and McDonald (1996) had identified nine themes, through in-depth interviews, related to parent effective life management strategies, personal qualities, and transformational outcomes from parenting children with disabilities. For the post-secondary students, thematic analysis of the interview data yielded five life-management themes, one related directly to transformational outcomes of living with disabilities.