Abstract:

A global multi-volume handbook that provides an overview of special education services in countries across the world using the United Nations (UN) Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) as an analytical frame. An overview of the American Samoa education system and its relationship between general education and special education and how it aligns with the UN CRPD Article 24 on Education. American Samoa is covered in Volume III Asia and Oceania Region.

The following report represents an expansion of the data collection activities mandated by a 2012 Administration of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AIDD) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). Prior to 2012, the AIDD funded data projects, Access to Integrated Employment, Family and Individual Information Systems project (FISP), Residential Information Systems Project (RISP) and the State of the States in Developmental Disabilities only collected data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 2012 FOA requested that three of the AIDD data projects work together to include the five U.S. Territories (American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) in their data collection and analysis efforts. This summary represents the first step to describe the services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families in the territories. While the information may have limitations in the comparability to the rest of the nation, AIDD believes that it is important to begin data collection, tracking and analysis to increase opportunities to improve self-determination, independence, productivity, integration and inclusion of people with IDD into their communities in the U.S. Territories.

Abstract:

The American Samoa University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, Education, Research, and Service (AS-UCEDD) with the University of Hawaii Center on Disability Studies, conducted an exploratory study to better understand how state agencies deliver services, and how disability is perceived by agency staff and consumers in American Samoa. While it initially was envisioned as a needs-sensing study that used surveys and targeted database reviews to systematically capture client needs, the study transformed to a largely qualitative preliminary investigation that was dependent on personal interviews. Findings revealed how contextual, linguistic, and cultural factors play a hugely important role when researching western-based ideals and concepts within indigenous communities.