This study was designed to explore the attitudes of the orthopedically disabled individual toward his disability and to initiate the preliminary steps toward standardizing an instrument to measure adjustment of the physically disabled. Ss were 45 orthopedically disabled people who were given the Bell Disability Scale of Adjustment (BDSA), the Attitude Toward Disabled Persons (ATDP) scale, and 31 of these 45 were administered the Shipley-Hartford Vocabulary test. The findings are consistent with the rationale underlying the development of the BDSA and are discussed within a framework outlined in an adjustment paradigm of active and passive acceptance and rejection.
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