Disabled Child and Adolescent Counseling

I believe that the parents of children with disabilities play a pivotal roll in the educational and social development of their children. When a child is diagnosed with a disability it leaves the parent with a lot of responsibility and difficult decisions to make. When parents start planning to have children, most of them do not expect to have a child with special needs. It is the parents’ responsibility to provide everything that they are capable of to give the child what they need to succeed regardless of what those needs may be.

In Helena Maria Viramontes’s story “The Moths,” she uses various types of figurative language that help create meaning to the story. For example in the passage “My hands began to fan out, grow like a liar’s nose until they hung by my side like low weights. Abuelita made a balm out of dried month wings and Vicks and rubbed my hands, shaping them back to size. It was the strangest feeling. Like bones melting. Like sun shining through the darkness of your eyelids. I didn’t mind helping Abuelita after that, so Amá would always send me over to her” Viramontes uses figurative language to show hoe the moths bring things back to life (811-812). Viramontes uses similes throughout this story, and in this passage, she uses a lot of similes. For example,

To find that a member a family has learning difficulty is a huge shock for the rest of the family and brings emotions and new challenges. Living with a disabled person can have profound effects on the entire family–parents, siblings(brothers and sisters).For parents, having a disabled child

Cannery Row is a town located in Monterey, California. Despite being small, dirty and crowded, it is a well functioned town and is home to people from different walks of life. In the novel’s prologue, John Steinbeck wrote the following: “Its inhabitants are, as one man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches’ by which he meant Everybody” and “[have] the man looked through another peephole he might have said: ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing” (Steinbeck 1). He basically comments that the difference in viewpoints given the same event results from the power of perspective and duality observed in people. One might see Cannery Row as a low-down place while the others might see Cannery Row as a lively, vigorous town. One would see a character’s actions disputable while the others would see their behaviors admirable. The viewpoints of the readers and the way characters behave at various times explain the fact that Cannery Row and its inhabitants possess qualities crossing good and evil.

Having a child with disabilities dramatically impacts the parent 's role in their life. Disabled children require more attention because they face daily challenges

Cultural Considerations. It has been observed that professionals cannot offer effective support for families without understanding the systems within which the families exist and function (Enwefa, Enwefa, & Jennings, 2006). Given the great importance of support systems for families affected by IDD, it is necessary to consider cultural factors which may affect such systems in either a positive or negative manner. Across cultures, people tend to have varying beliefs about disability (Kayama, 2010), which at times may function as barriers, preventing access to supports and services (Cagran et al., 2011; White, 1987). Kayama (2010) asserts that systemic change may lead to revised perceptions and beliefs among families, moving them from segregationist and negative views, toward a perspective of inclusion.

My first goal was to learn more about how to work with, support, and help people with disabilities. Along with this goal, I wanted to become more familiar with the experience of working with this population. I am studying to become an occupational therapist and am currently interested in working mainly with disabled children. I am also interested in the elderly population, but through this experience at Windsong Equitherapy and some shadowing at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, I am leaning towards working with disabled children. Aside from this goal, I also wanted to learn how parents and families with disabilities cope with having a child with special needs and the effect this has on the

In the video, When Concerns Arise: Learning from Families’ Experiences, parents discussed the feelings they had when they discovered their child was going to have disabilities. Doctors informed them their child would never be able to walk or talk and the child would become a burden on the family. With this being said, many of them felt alone with little support. After the initial shock of learning about their child, and not wanting to believe the doctors, they began to learn and understand their child’s disability. They began to seek help and support from head start programs, teachers, advocacy groups, family members, friends and other families who have children with disabilities.

Hauser-Cram P, Warfield ME, Shonkoff JP, Krauss MW, Sayer A, Upshur CC. Children with disabilities: A longitudinal study of child development and parent well-being. Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 2001;66:i–viii.

Research suggests that regardless of IQ, a majority of adults with ASD remain dependent upon their families or other services for support in adult life (Howlin, Goode, Hutton, and Rutter, 2004). In 2011, an estimated 71% of individuals with a developmental disability lived with a family caregiver (Braddock et al., 2013). Despite a this large percentage of individuals depending on their families for lifetime support, more than half (51%) have begun making plans for the long-term care of their son or daughter with a developmental disability in the event of a family crisis such as the failing health or death of a parent (Kaufman, Adams, & Campbell, 1991). Given the growing prevalence of ASD, the aging of adults with ASD, along with their continued reliance on caregiving support, it becomes important to not only identify the needs of this population but also how parental caregivers experience the task of permanency planning for their adult child with ASD. Permanency planning is the process of procuring long-term services for a person with a developmental

The first article that I read was Sibling Cooperative and Externalizing Behaviors and Families Raising Children with Disabilities. The article starts off by explaining how more caregivers are taking care of their children with disabilities inside the home as well as taking care of their children that are typically developing. This article covers the effects on how the typically developing sibling or TDS is coping with their sibling with a disability inside the home, the burdens that the caregiver experiences, and what kind of parenting style works inside the home. Press article also covers family systems it stated that "family systems are interdependent and the family member's behavior is related not only to one's self but also to the behavior and interactions of other individuals and subsystems within the family." (Platt, Roper, Mandleco & Freeborn, 2014). This article also defined that a "care burden refers to the physical emotional, financial, mental, and

Parenting is a feat all on it's own, but do most people ever stop to acknowledge the true difficulties underlying the day to day challenges of parenting a disabled child? For most of us, becoming a parent means making selfless sacrifices in order to make time and to simply grow up. Some aren't as lucky to get off that easily. Raising a child with a disability varies in difficulty, but regardless of the case, each parent is required to go above and beyond the average role. More education, more patience, and more attention are just a few of the "extra curricular" duties that go along with raising a disabled child. Unfortunately, the seemingly never ending list of additional responsibilities isn't necessarily the only obstacle for these parents. Certain medical conditions aren't covered by insurance companies due to lack of awareness or simply the state's disinterest in funding a non-profitable cause, leaving these families to fend for themselves.

If SLPs understand the impact of having a child with a disability has on the family, they will be able to more optimally engage parents in the therapy process. Parents can be critical partners to the therapy process; however, sometimes SLPs underestimate their potential role. It is common for parents to get the reputation of being pushy or disinterested but this is a true depiction. Often SLPs’ own perspective on the situation clouds how they view a family.

al (2014) it is suggested promoting a positive relationship between all family members is beneficial to the family. According to Whiting (2014) 9% of families stated that having a child with a disability led to a family break-up. Whiting (2014) suggests that 23% of parents believe having a child with a disability brought them closer.

Often times, people believe fear comes from a simple jump-scare or phobia. However, a sudden change in a situation can largely affect how the situation is viewed. In the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher," transformation creates the entire atmosphere of fear depicted. The popular Gothic poem "The Raven" develops the story through the narrator's changes throughout. In the online anthology known as the SCP Foundation, the various "SCPs" create terrifying and otherworldly effects through their extraordinary changes and behaviors. All of these demonstrate a simple concept: shifts within a story or plot, whether subtle or dramatic, often add new conflicts or levels of fear and danger to the characters' lives or the reader's experience.