Research Involving Participants with Cognitive Disability and Differences. Ethics, Autonomy, Inclusion, and Innovation

Section I: Conceptual Frameworks
1: Ongoing consent in situations of cognitive vulnerability: Special considerations in implanted neural device trials, Lauren Sankary and Paul Ford
2: Who Decides? Legal Changes to Facilitate Inclusion of Participants with Impaired Cognition in Research, Megan Wright
3: Differing Understandings of Informed Consent Held by Research Institutions, People with Intellectual Disability, and Guardians: Implications for Inclusive, Ethical Research, Britteny Howell and Karrie Shogren
4: Research Cohorts: Diverse Research Subjects, Similar Remedies to Errors in Consent, Deborah Barnbaum
5: Autism, Autonomy, and Research, Kenneth A Richman

Section II: Challenges
6: Disability, Vulnerability, and the Capacity to Consent, Stephanie Patterson and Pamela Block
7: REB/IRB Variability and Other Ethical Challenges in Multi-site Research Involving Participants on the Autism Spectrum, Mackenzie Salt
8: Bridging worlds: can anthropology be a communicational therapy?, Leonardo Campoy
9: Challenges of Participating in Research about Living with MCI among Disabled Veterans, Christine Schneider and Eva Kahana
10: Mediators of Inclusion: Challenges to Including Adults with Mild Intellectual Disability in Qualitative Research, Vanessa Cox, Treena Orchard, Pamela Cushing, and Elizabeth Anne Kinsella
11: Shifting Identities: Research on Macro and Micro Aspects of ID College Programs, Jack Trammell

Section III: Successes
12: Recognizing the voices of children with 'cognitive impairments' in research, Marjorie Montreuil, Gail Teachman, and Franco Carnevale
13: Informed consent for closed-loop DBS psychiatric research: Engaging end users to understand risks and improve practice, Eran Klein
14: Using Ethnographic Methods to Determine Capacity to Consent amongst Individuals Diagnosed with Chronic Mental Illnesses, Saira A. Mehmood
15: Making research more ethical for adults with FASD: A story of stakeholder engagement, accommodation, and inclusion, John Aspler
16: A conversation with research ethics boards about inclusive research with persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Virginie Cobigo, Lynne A. Potvin, Casey Fulford, Hajer Chalghoumi, Mariam Hanna, Natasha Plourde, and Whitney Taylor
17: Assuming Competency, Anne Kohler

Section IV: Commentaries
18: Commentary on: Laura Dunn and Paul Holzheimer
19: Response to Sankary and Ford: Ongoing Consent for the Inverse Problematic to Loss of Capacity, Caitlin Courchesne and Judy Illes
20: Differing Understandings of Informed Consent, Jack Trammell
21: 18. Comments on Britteny M. Howell and Karrie A. Shogren's Deborah Barnbaum
22: 18. Comments on Kenneth A. Richman's Deborah Barnbaum
23: Commentary, Allison Bloom
24: Repurposing Ethnography to Assess Consent Capacity, Megan Wright
25: Using Ethnographic Methods, Jack Trammell
26: Commentary on Assuming Capacity: Ethical Participatory Research with Adolescents and Adults with Down Syndrome, Anne Kohler and Ben Majewski
27: What stories tell? In praise of anthropology, Leonard Campoy
28: Commentary on Bridging Worlds: Can Anthropology be a Communication Therapy?, Melissa Park and Donald Fogelberg
29: Toward a research (ethics) culture of inclusion and participation, Eric Racine
30: 18. Vulnerability, empowerment, and dissent - The importance of saying no, M. Ariel Cascio

Research participants who have cognitive disabilities and differences may be considered a vulnerable population. At the same time, they should also be empowered to participate in research in order to foster the growth of knowledge and the improvement of practices. For research participants with cognitive disabilities or differences, participating in research that concerns them follows the Disability Rights Movement's call.

This volume provides timely, multidisciplinary insights into the ethical aspects of research that includes participants with cognitive disability and differences. These include conditions such as intellectual disability, autism, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and psychiatric diagnoses. The chapters in this volume describe situations where difficulties arise, explore strategies for empowerment and inclusion, drawing on both empirical and normative research to offer suggestions for research design, research ethics, and best practices that empower people with cognitive disabilities and differences to participate in research while respecting and managing potential coercion or undue influence. 

The book includes contributions from scholars in anthropology, sociology, ethics, child studies, health and rehabilitation sciences, philosophy, and law who address these issues in both clinical and social/behavioural research. The book will be valuable for anyone performing research involving these populations - from the fields of neuropsychology, neurology, psychiatry, and neuroscience.

• Includes cutting-edge research involving participants with cognitive difference and disabilities, moving beyond the theoretical discussions and previous contributions to show what work is being done currently
• Multidisciplinary collection of contributions, exposing readers to research they might not have otherwise seen within their own discipline
• Includes contributions from researchers and research assistants with diagnoses of autism and Down Syndrome, challenging the stereotype that people with such diagnoses cannot be researchers

Edited by M. Ariel Cascio, Postdoctoral Researcher, Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit, Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, Neurology & Neurosurgery, McGill University, Canada, and Eric Racine, Full Research Professor, Department of Medicine and Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Université de Montréal, Canada.

M. Ariel Cascio, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit of the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal with a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Case Western Reserve University. Cascio's research focuses on social and ethical issues related to autism, including developing guidelines for person-oriented autism research ethics through a collaborative project with autistic self-advocates, parents, researchers, professionals, and advocacy organization representatives.

Eric Racine, PhD, is Director of the Pragmatic Health Ethics Research Unit and Full Research Professor at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), Canada with joint appointments at the Université de Montréal and McGill University. Inspired by philosophical pragmatism, his research aims to understand and bring to the forefront the experience of ethically problematic situations encountered by patients and stakeholders in order to resolve them collaboratively through deliberative and evidenced-informed processes. He has published over 150 peer reviewed publications in leading journals in the social sciences (e.g., Social Science & Medicine; Public Understanding of Science), bioethics (e.g., Bioethics, American Journal of Bioethics), neuroscience (e.g., Pain, Neuron, Nature Reviews Neuroscience), and clinical medicine and neurology (e.g., Neurology, Lancet Neurology).