Master of Arts in Medical Ethics and Humanities, Northeast Ohio Medical University, 2021, College of Graduate Studies

Despite 20% of its population living with a disability, the United States continues to produce physicians who are inadequately trained in delivering equitable healthcare to disabled patients (United States Census Bureau, 2012; Wen, 2014). With patients and healthcare providers alike acknowledging this discrepancy, the medical education system ought to integrate the lived disability experience into existing medical curricula and establish standardized training requirements and competencies for trainees (Santoro et al, 2017). As a solution, I propose a disability-focused medical curriculum. Centered around the theory of care ethics, this longitudinal curriculum redefines “care” as a mutual exchange amongst team members, with the patient as the expert of his or her body, experiences, and community (Kittay, 2011). Both medical students and residents are exposed to didactics and practical experience- based learning that provide a strong understanding of (1) this theory of care ethics, (2) the combination of the positive elements of the medical and social models of disability, and (3) intersectionality. Upon successful implementation of this curriculum, trainees will acknowledge and affirm the patient's lived experience, heal patients in accordance with their personal values, desires, and goals, and work towards the alleviation of any extra burdens endured by patients who exist at multiple intersections of marginalization (Reynolds, 2018). As medical students and residents master these competencies, they will build a medical community that humanizes their patients rather than reinforcing the cycle of misconceptions fashioned by their predecessors.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, English

Pathology and Pity traces the interdependence of medical and moral models of disability in American literature of the long nineteenth-century, from Royall Tyler's The Algerine Captive (1797), to several short stories by Edgar Allan Poe in the 1840s, to the promotional materials of stuttering school literature from the 1880s to the 1920s, to Herman Melville's Billy Budd, unpublished at the time of Melville's death but composed 1888-1891. The interdependence of these models shapes not just the way that disability is represented in the works examined, but also the way that disability functions in and shapes the narratives. Each chapter focuses on how medical and moral discourses related to a particular disability - blindness, madness, and stuttering - in contemporaneous philosophical, medical, journalistic, and promotional writings influenced the literary works examined. Throughout nineteenth-century America, the relationship between medical and moral models of disability produced a number of related discourses that tie into Foucault's concepts of disciplinary power and biopower: compulsory ablebodiedness; disability as an object of and barrier to sympathy; the push toward cure; the ability of diagnosis to reliably read pathological and moral defects; the connection between willpower, self-awareness, and ability; the benevolence of medicine; and the elevation of expertise. Some works of American nineteenth-century literature reinforce these discourses, others challenge them, and some exhibit a tension between the two positions. Disability functions as a narrative device to speak to national debates in American culture and to comment on the very nature of storytelling and reading. Tyler's novel uses the cure of blindness to reflect on the proper way of seeing America and telling the story of becoming a proper American citizen. Poe's stories incorporate anxieties about madness and psychiatric diagnosis to address concerns about criminal responsibility and the role of (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, English

In this dissertation, I provide a reconstruction and analysis of the Anglo-Saxon conceptions of impairment and disability, as they are preserved within the textual record of the period. I develop the Old English lexeme unhælu as the most appropriate term for these conceptions, as it reflects the holism that is central to the Anglo-Saxon understanding of health and ability. Unhælu is a large and fluid category, which covers physical impairment, illness, and injury, and which takes into consideration their impact on both the body's functionality and appearance. Importantly, it does not seem to cover mental health impairments and other similar conditions. It may perhaps be best understood in terms of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's notion of the “extraordinary body,” which brings together various kinds of corporeal otherness, such as impairment, deformity, monstrosity, and mutilation. Consequently, this dissertation focuses on defining the polysemous concept of unhælu, determining how the Anglo-Saxons perceived the concept, and discovering how these beliefs impacted the lives of unhal people. To achieve these aims, I employ rigorous textual and linguistic analysis, and adapt the insights of present-day disability theory to an early medieval context. In the opening chapters, I begin by establishing the linguistic and educational foundations of the Anglo-Saxon conception of unhælu. Chapter One examines the Old English lexicon that reveals how they spoke and thought about impairment, while Chapter Two considers the school-room texts that would have served as the contemporary equivalent of their disability theory. In the following chapters, I discuss what the Anglo-Saxons' various responses to unhælu reveal about their perception of the state. Chapter Three uses the medical texts to provide a detailed reconstruction of unhælu, as suggested by the leeches' remedies and their understanding of etiology. Chapter Four builds on this foundation by employing the law-codes to further (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, History of Art

In a 1960 article entitled “Younger American Painters,” William Rubin accused Rauschenberg's Combines of rendering the “inherently biographical style of Abstract Expressionism… even more personal, more particular, and sometimes almost embarrassingly private.” Rubin's choice of the word “embarrassingly” is telling; the Combines are not just private, but embarrassingly so; that is, the problem the Combines present is that they are not private when good sense/taste tells us they should be. This spilling over of the supposed-to-be-private into the embarrassingly deviant public has been read as an insistence on the work of art as both in its environment and in communication with it, as a valorization of the femininity associated with the interior/personal and relatedly, as a refusal of heteronormative subjectivity as dictated in the Cold War era. This paper suggests another reading—not as an alternative, but as a supplement to these: a reading of Rauschenberg's Combines through the lens of disability theory. If Rauschenberg's Combines are debased (and there seems to be some agreement that they are), and if one's experience of them is bodily (and this experience seems if not universal, then nearly so), then their association with the debased/abject body demands inquiry. Made up of disparate parts that insist upon their discrete, adjunctive identities and former lives, the Combines might be best understood as Frankensteins—disabled bodies that refuse to comply and in so doing inscribe new ways of being (corporeally) in the world.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, American Culture Studies

This dissertation posits that the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America (Make-A-Wish) is a site of knowledge about contemporary constructions of disability. Since its founding in 1980, Make-A-Wish has built a notable reputation as a charity that grants once-in-a-lifetime wishes to children with critical illnesses. Using a disability studies approach that contextualizes Make-A-Wish's charity model of disability, this project builds on the work of scholars such as Alison Kafer, Paul Longmore, and Jasbir Puar to think through the various elements of the wish-granting organization's structure, premise, and representational strategies. Further, the project explicates the ways that Make-A-Wish perpetuates neoliberal concepts of private enterprise and personal responsibility as the organization reinforces Talcott Parson's concept of the “sick role” and isolates its grantees from a larger disability community. In addition to studying the main themes that appear across Make-A-Wish's official platforms, this dissertation also investigates the implications of two of the elements that ostensibly set Make-A-Wish apart from other organizations: its wish-granting model and its definitions of wish eligibility. Specifically, the organization's reproduction of social conceptions of leisure and necropolitics exemplify the complex ways Make-A-Wish interacts with dominant understandings of disability. In order to further complicate the representations of disability Make-A-Wish promotes, this study pairs a content analysis of Make-A-Wish materials with the perspectives of individuals who have personal experiences with the organization—either as wish grantees, grantee family members, and/or donors. I conducted interviews with these individuals to gather valuable insights into the organization's work and to nuance the analysis the project presents. Finally, I weave my own experiences with the organization as the sister of a Make-A-Wish grantee through this project, both to establish my researc (open full item for complete abstract)

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Counselor Education

People with disabilities (PWDs) are one of the largest minority groups in the United States; however, they have been perceived as a defected group of people with various types of impairments, versus a minority group experiencing oppression, social marginalization, and discrimination. This misleading perception of disability has been active in counseling and psychology disciplines. People with disabilities are more than their impairments, and more than their disabilities. Parallel to this, their counseling needs are not limited to rehabilitation services. Nevertheless, psychological and counseling services for PWDs have been relegated to the services focusing on rehabilitation. Other specialty areas did not acknowledge the responsibility to train students on disabilities. Following the disability rights movement, deinstitutionalization of PWDs, ratification of Americans with Disabilities Act, technological and medical advancements, PWDs are in daily life more than ever. Like non-disabled counterparts, they have various counseling needs which might be responded by relevant specialists. Also similar to other minority group members, PWDs need culturally sensitive and appropriate services. Despite this demand, counseling profession have failed to train disability competent specialists. Only one third of the multicultural counseling syllabuses included disability as a distinct subject of the course content. When disability is covered, often it was either given less attention or heavily focused on medical aspect of disability. Studies showed the positive impact of disability focused training as well as disability contact on disability multicultural competence for helping professionals. In order to further investigate this relationship, the current study examined disability level of contact (how close is the participant with a PWD) , quality of that contact, department/ program conduciveness (how affirmative is the program environment for raising disability competen (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Psychology

Previous research has shown that residence in a non-metropolitan area is associated with lower access to preventative care and poorer heath. However, this research has been largely restricted to the general population, despite data demonstrating people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience disparities in health care and service utilization as well as important markers of health. The current research explored the effects of urbanicity on these variables in people with IDD to provide a clearer picture of factors affecting access to care, focusing specifically on three outcome variables: access to services (e.g., transportation, healthcare coordination), utilization of preventative healthcare (e.g., most recent eye exam, most recent physical exam), and health markers (e.g., high blood pressure, BMI). Data was drawn from the National Core Indicators 2015-2016 Adult Consumer survey, which was the first wave of data collection to include Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes. This allowed for the analysis of urbanization as a predictor for the aforementioned variables of interest. Logistic regressions were run, which produced odds ratios for each of the outcome variables dependent on the urbanicity of the participants' residence (i.e., metropolitan, micropolitan, or rural/small town). Overall, the current research suggests that, despite all participants in the sample being connected to state level disability services, health outcomes and access to care generally follow patterns similar to those observed in the general population, with those in non-metropolitan areas having lower access to services, lower healthcare utilization, and poorer health status. While there are some exceptions to this trend, suggesting that there is some recognition of the problem and attempts to remedy it, this research suggests that the effects of rurality are too significant to be completely mitigated by current efforts.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Although self-determination theory has been used in studies pertaining to students with disabilities (SWD) in high school STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) very little self-determination research has focused on SWD in college STEM programs. Additionally, there is a paucity of research that examines how self-advocacy, one component of self-determination theory, is operationalized from the perspectives of STEM SWD themselves. Further, no research exists to date linking self-advocacy to stigma management, a critical concept for understanding SWD's and other underrepresented groups' navigation of educational environments. The dissertation examines how self-advocacy and stigma management are related to better explain pursuit of college STEM programs and degrees by students with nonvisible disabilities (SWND), the largest group of SWD (Newman et al., 2011). I explore the experiences of SWND majoring in STEM fields at The Ohio State University (Ohio State), using a mixed-method approach utilizing both quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine student factors and learning environment conditions that enhance and/or thwart SWND's learning and persistence. Over the course of the 2016-2017 academic year, I disseminated surveys, conducted in-depth interviews, and facilitated focus groups with twenty SWND to understand their experiences at Ohio State. The results of this research demonstrate a significant connection between stigma management and self-advocacy enactments among participants, which is then more thoroughly explored at the level of theory. This dissertation utilizes intersectionality and standpoint theories as lenses to interpret the data gathered through the quantitative and qualitative methods to explore reports of self-advocacy and stigma management. Foregrounding the experiences of SWND in STEM contributes to an understanding of how self-advocacy can be approached from a critical feminist disability studies perspective that is inform (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Music

This dissertation explores sonic signifiers of injury, disease, and mental illness in 8- and 16-bit video game soundscapes. The immediacy and invasiveness of the medium makes game sound uniquely positioned to influence players' personal identification and immersion within the narrative, and incorporation within the body of the avatar. Games replicate social discourse about the meanings of bodies, and tell stories that matter in a medium that engenders an unusually deep personal engagement. In order to confront these sonic signifiers, I subject my own transcriptions of game audio to analysis drawing on disability studies, ludomusicology (the study of music and play, usually focusing on video games), and music cognition literatures to implicate games in broader discourses of human difference and media representation. In games, bodily impairments are treated not as part of a nuanced spectrum of lived experience, but as obstacles to overcome. Game sound often represents these mechanics in the abstract, to communicate changes in game states to the player, and so the soundscape becomes a vital arbiter of meaning and action. Players' responses to these aural cues is to seek a cure, reading disabilities as temporary setbacks in performance, cues to restore the avatar to “normal.” Game sounds reinforce ableist ideals, promoting an unrealistic view of the idealized normative body and mind as achievable constants and reflecting deep cultural anxieties about the implications of bodily difference.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2018, Educational Leadership

Due to the continuous growth of diverse student bodies on college campuses, creating accessibility for each unique student needs to be considered. Students who have a disability or disabilities are a substantial part of this growing diverse student body. Since disability resource specialists play a significant role in creating accessibility for such students, they can consider implementing practices that qualify as Universal Design. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore where disability resource specialists fall on Lewin's (1951) continuum of change and Reynold's (2009) levels of expertise in regards to implementing practices that qualify as Universal Design. Six participants were included in this study out of eight who were invited to participate. Out of those six participants, the study showed that all participants demonstrated a strong presence in the Unfreezing stage of Lewin's (1951) continuum of change. Also, the study showed that all participants showed a level of knowledge as the second tier to Reynold's (2009) levels of expertise. Limitations as well as recommendations for future research included recruiting a larger sample of participants to provide greater analysis of the study.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2018, English

This dissertation reveals how cognitive disability's formal and rhetorical potential developed in the U.S. from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, detailing the ways in which writers determined the reader's engagement with cognitive others. Scientific pathology inspired literary authors to experiment with narrative mechanics. Conversely, literature and popular nonfiction revealed to psychologists unrecognized features of cognitive identity as well as narrative's methodological and political potential. Cognitive disability, never fully assimilable, emerges as a force that can reorganize narrative events and aestheticize their telling. My work challenges theories of disability that prefigure difference as fixed or known in narrative. Great authors redefine disability as a force that is always coming to be known. I introduce a heuristic to help scholars understand this process, specifically how stories introduce tenuous ways of representing and narrating disability, put forth conflicting ontological claims about the mind, and withhold what can be known about disability at key moments. As readers struggle to pin down what exactly disability is, narrative places them in a space where they can reflect not only on the abilities of the disabled subject, but their own.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2017, English

This work outlines the case for destigmatizing madness, especially within the academy. The censoring of the mad that occurs in present-day United States society is a social justice issue that must be remedied. The supposed origin of this censoring is explored through rhetorical texts both antique and contemporary, and an argument is made that the way forward is through expression of madness in scholarship and pedagogy. Power structures that will resist such a move are outlined, and a case is made for the use of deliberate rhetorical positioning to provide “cover” for those who wish to express their madness in their publications. As evidence, an “OCD analysis” is outlined and then performed on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that serves as the primary diagnostic tool of the American Psychiatric Association. The analysis argues that this work is in and of itself an assertion of social power, and reveals several places where the work is vulnerable to criticism, despite attempts to position it as unassailable authority. Finally, the results of a study are discussed; the study consisted of interviews with 11 self-identified mad scholars, seeking to determine how they function within the boundaries of academic life and what might be changed to further their participation. In the end, a call for solidarity with neurotypical scholars is issued for the improvement of all.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2017, Counselor Education (Education)

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of young adults' adjustment to life with chronic illness and disability (CID) journey. This research aimed to look at how individuals adjusting to life with CID experienced changes in their personal relationships. Three key personal relationships were examined in this research project: family, friends, and intimate partners. An extensive literature review was conducted on the key components needed to adjustment to life with a CID and have the desired quality of life post diagnosis. The current literature was also reviewed on disability and sexuality and relationships. A gap was found during the literature review with limited resources available for review on how relationships with family, friends, and intimate partners change when one partner is learning to live with a CID. This research study reviewed the lived experiences of seven participants who were in the adjustment process of learning to live life with a CID. Each of the participants was interviewed using a semi structured interview guide that first looked at how the person is adjusting to life with a CID. Then each of the seven participants were asked about any changes that had occurred post diagnosis with CID with their family, friends, or intimate partners. The phenomenological research method provided rich, detailed information on the changes that happened in these relationships. The research data collected were then analyzed for common themes from the adjustment to CID process. These themes were then compared to the current literature and discussed. Themes were also developed from the rich data about the relationship changes that occurred with family, friends, and intimate partners. These themes identified three key components (relationship status at diagnosis, communication, and adaptability in their relationship) of relationship change during the adjustment to CID journey. The significance (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Liberal Studies, University of Toledo, 2014, Liberal Studies

The eugenics movement targeted people who were blind and visually impaired as part of "the unfit" members of society who needed to be prevented from passing on their blindness to successive generations. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, eugenicists, blindness professionals, and even other blind people believed that the best way to eliminate blindness was through the restriction of marriages between blind people. Ophthalmologist Lucien Howe repeatedly attempted to secure legislation barring blind people from marrying. Blindness professionals, especially educators, stressed the importance of the separation of the sexes in residential schools for the blind as the way in which to prevent blind marriages and intermarriages, and thus to prevent future generations of blind people. Blind people's assessment of their own marriageability was complex and sometimes contradictory. While some shirked contemporary views, most others accepted and promoted the eugenic idea that hereditary blindness should not be passed to the next generation. Many historians have previously overlooked the unique and rich history of blind people in the United States. This research hopes to illuminate an important aspect of that history.

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD), Wright State University, 2014, School of Professional Psychology

The study of facilitators of treatment seeking and compliance in people with severe mental illness represents a significant gap in the current literature. The present study, using a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, attempted to identify facilitators to treatment seeking and compliance through the lived experiences of people living with severe mental illness. Interviews were used to gather information about the experience of people with severe mental illness regarding disability identity development, recovery, interactions with treatment and treatment providers, the experience of being diagnosed with a severe mental illness, and the impact of psychiatric disability on family, friends, and functioning. Results reflected the importance of religion and spirituality, trust, coping and self-care, disability identity, and social and family support as key facilitators to treatment seeking and compliance in people with severe mental illness. Implications for the provision of services to people with severe mental illness and for future research are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, History

"With Minds Fixed on the Horrors of War" examines the expansion of federal disability policy in the wake of World War II by focusing on the rise and decline of the major activist organization for disabled civilians, the American Federation of the Physically Handicapped (AFPH). During World War II, with labor shortages threatening production and concerns for the disabled soldier playing heavily on their thoughts, federal officials launched a campaign to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Indeed, many employers developed elaborate plans for employing people with disabilities during the war, and 83 percent of the nation's factories had disabled workers on their payrolls. At the end of the war, liberal policy makers, organized labor, and disability activists in the AFPH, as well as officials in the federal government, all played important roles in fashioning disability policy. These groups did not always work in concert; their differences did much to limit the reach of the disability policy of the postwar decades. Liberals em-braced disability policy as a crucial component in the postwar legislative expansion of the welfare state, but could not agree on the underlying purpose of disability policy and its administration. Social welfare professionals, and the liberals that aligned with them, wanted disability policy in the hands of medical professionals in the Federal Security Agency, who could provide treatment and care for people with disabilities, while labor liberals argued that people with disabilities deserved the dignity of work and that the proper administrative home for disability policy was in the Department of Labor. For their part, disability activists in the AFPH exposed widespread discrimination and the failings of disability policy, while pushing for increased employment opportunities in the postwar economy. Based on archival research in government, union, and AFPH documents and extensive reading of contemporary periodicals, m (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Cross-Cultural, International Education

This research study focuses on exploring the parental struggles that parents of children with disabilities go through when trying to access special education for their children in the educational system of Kenya. The study documents the perspectives of parents through analysis of data anchored within their struggles and experiences as they navigate the system of education to access quality education for their children with disabilities. Based on a phenomenological approach, the study focuses on a sample of eight parents of children with disabilities. Hogan's (2019) Social Model of Disability and Medical Model of Disability help frame the study within the discussion of the experiences of parents of children with disabilities. The findings of this study are presented through specific themes, describing the personal challenges and experiences of these parents followed by an analysis of the same themes. These findings underscore systemic challenges in special education, cultural and societal attitudes and educational outcome and well-being issues faced by parents and their children with disabilities.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, English

Afrophantasm is both a rhetorical framework and a lens considering how the invisibility of black disability can be used and understood in both positive and/or negative ways. As a reconsideration of W.E.B. Du Bois's seminal idea of double conscious “two-ness” in The Souls of Black Folk, Afrophantasm instead represents a “threeness” by positioning a person's self-state in a trifecta of Blackness, American status, and embodiment through the lens of ability. Further, it theorizes how an environment can produce or amplify a black disabled spectral state created through stigma and ignorance, either by erasing the acknowledgment of this multi-marginalization or refocusing it to leverage its perceived disadvantages into a state of empowerment or self-recognition. By considering the idea of the rhetorical in relation to this theory, its application is expanded through a variety of examples, including cultural rhetoric (via nommo or West African oral stylistic practice), visual rhetoric (and the question of photographic disabled representations), as well as in embodied rhetoric (through the interrogation of black genetics or cybernetics), to name a few. When he coined Afrofuturism in 1993, Mark Dery wrote that "African Americans…inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies" (181). Through a complex nexus of art, music, literature, and more, the genre exists as a universe progressively centered on black lives and experiences juxtaposed against a world built to erase them. Yet, when it comes to the subaltern realm of Blackness and disability woven together, those most in need of a reprieve are instead assaulted with a litany of new shiny digital tools of discrimination, as the famed “digital divide” (highlighting an assumed lesser black digital literacy vs. white internet competence) turns corporeal (open full item for complete abstract)

DNP, Otterbein University, 2023, Nursing

Forensic nurse examiners (FNEs) care for crime victims in acute care settings. These nurses are specifically trained in trauma-informed care and evidence collection in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, abuse, and human trafficking (RAINN, 2022). The scholarly project focuses on the care of victims of sexual assault living with disability, as this population is three times more likely to be victimized than any other population (NSVRC, 2022). The project literature review reveals a lack of data on preparation standards for FNEs on caring for victims with disability and providing accommodations during forensic examination. Currently, it is unknown if FNEs in the state of Ohio receive the same degree and quality of education regarding the specific needs of disabled victims who have experienced and been affected by a criminal act. Also, it is unknown if knowledge deficits and clinical practice gaps exist among the Ohio FNEs providing care to this potentially vulnerable population. To identify, assess, and address any existing gaps in preparation a 10-question survey was distributed to FNE's in the state of Ohio through email. The survey was formulated with the assistance of the Dr. Joy Shoemaker of Otterbein University, Ruth Downing of Forensic Nursing Network, LLC, and the Adult Advocacy Centers administration team. Findings of the survey concluded that 57.9% of respondents did not have disability-specific education in their FNE training course in the state of Ohio. Respondents were from all 5 identified regions of Ohio, with the majority practicing in Central Ohio with representation from all regions included. In conclusion, the survey established that disability training is not standardized in current FNE training programs in the state of Ohio.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Psychology

Although disabled individuals comprise about a fifth of the United States population, minimal work has examined the relative rates and impacts of experiencing disability-related stigma. The present research offers the first large-scale examination of the relationship between experiencing disability discrimination and mental health in the United States. Data from 4,915 individuals who reported having a physical disability in the second wave of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC-II, 2004-2005) were analyzed. I examined how frequently participants reported experiencing disability discrimination, their mental health experiences, the permanence of their disability, and coping styles following discrimination. I anticipated that frequency of disability discrimination would predict anxiety and depression outcomes, and that this relationship would be moderated by disability permanence, coping style, and the joint interaction thereof. Results indicated that individuals who experienced greater disability discrimination in the prior year were more likely to report having experienced some degree of depression and anxiety. Contrary to my hypotheses, the relationship between discrimination and mental health was not moderated by disability permanence, coping styles, or their interaction. I examine possible reasons behind the lack of interaction effects, limitations and strengths of the present work, and possible future directions of research.