Friday (3/9) UGM Psychology Doctoral Study Program held an event with the theme “Community defied efficiency for children with disabilities: Scoping review and photovoice stories from West Timor”. This event is a series of Kolokium Dua Mingguan (KDM) Promovendus Club which is held open to the public.
The event starts at 09.00 WIB and ends at 10.45 WIB. This event was attended by 145 participants from the UGM Psychology Doctoral Program students and the general public.
The speaker at this event was Indra Yohanes Kiling, S.Psi, M.A., Ph.D., a lecturer at Nusa Cendana University who has scientific disciplines in the fields of community psychology and developmental psychology. A graduate of the Doctoral Program in Psychology at The University of Adelaide, Australia, he explained about his dissertation, which is about evidence that is established by society for children with disabilities.
Indra’s research is a wedge between two areas of research on early childhood and disability. Indra explained that there are still few researches that combine the two domains, especially in developing countries. The lack of research that examines the intervention of children with disabilities in Indonesia and developing countries prompted Indra to conduct this research.
The first step taken by Indra was a literature study. To complete his literature study, Indra came directly to the libraries of UI, UNPAD, UPI, and UGM. However, from some of the literature he obtained, only a few were in accordance with the theme of disability intervention in early childhood.
“From the search results, only 8 of 1791 were selected,” said Indra, explaining that this situation made his publications initially often rejected by reviewers.
In the second study, Indra conducted a systematic literature review, namely looking for literature with criteria that were analyzed by the thematic approach. In this study, Indra compares the types of disability interventions in early childhood in Indonesia and 42 countries whose development level is equivalent to Indonesia, which has a Human Development Index (HDI) at the medium level.
From the literature review, Indra got four categories, one of which was disability screening, namely early detection of persons with disabilities, the majority of whom were deaf.
Furthermore, the theme that Indra found was Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). In its application, CBR uses a multi-sectoral approach so that it involves many elements and scientific disciplines.
“So when I do my dissertation, I automatically have to learn about health, learn about education, learn about economics, learn about social science, of course, and also about community empowerment movements or activities,” said Indra.
After undergoing two literature studies, Indra has just carried out field studies. His research was carried out in West Timor, precisely in Kupang, an area which administratively belongs to the province of East Nusa Tenggara. The next two field studies were conducted using qualitative methods using the main approach of interview and photovoice.
The purpose of the field study is to find out how parents perceive their children with disabilities, environmental risk factors, and support services for people with disabilities. Apart from parents, the participants in this study are local leaders who live in the area such as NGO heads, village heads, religious leaders, and also heads of offices.
In addition to explaining about the research he did, Indra also shared his strategy for completing his doctoral studies which he managed to complete in three years. Indra also explained the photovoice and scoping review methods that are very possible to be done online during the current COVID-19 pandemic.