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In the 1970s, the United States Congress enacted two statutes that have had dramatic and far‐reaching effects on the education of handicapped children by public schools. These two laws, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Education For All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (known as Public Law 94–142), have required local public school agencies to provide new eductional programs for thousands of handicapped children not previously served by the public schools. Counselors, principals, and teachers were quickly informed of the law's requirements and willingly began the task of main‐streaming and assimilating these children into various curricula. Their physical needs were attended to rapidly; their societal and emotional needs, unfortunately, lagged behind. Within the past seven years, there has been an increase in books, articles, and films specifically addressed to counseling the handicapped. Unlike past literature which focused only on the vocational aspect of rehabilitation counseling, current writing emphasizes personal counseling meant to assist a disabled child to participate fully in the problems and joys of daily living.

Twelve percent of families in the United States have a child with a disability, yet little is known about the long-term consequences of growing up with a disabled sibling. This study builds on previous research regarding disability effects on families and offers an additional view on the linked lives of families and, in particular, siblings. Using secondary data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults, this study examines the odds of college completion among young adults with a disabled sibling during childhood. Specifically, I examine the gender differences among those who had a sibling with a disability. Women are more than 35% less likely to complete college if they had a disabled sibling during childhood; there is no significant difference by sibling disability status for boys. To understand whether children in low-resourced families are particularly penalized by having a disabled sibling, I examine whether various family resources attenuate the low graduation odds among those who had a disabled sibling. I find that having stably married parents during childhood largely eliminates the college completion gap between those with and without a disabled sibling. However, increases in mothers' education or family income do not attenuate the college completion gap. By identifying this gender disadvantage in college completion, this study shows that disabilities have consequences not just for disabled individuals but for their siblings as well, shining a light on a hidden cost of disability on families.

This article examines the impact on disabled children and their families of the Children Act 1989 from the author's perspective of close involvement in this area of policy from 1992 to 2005. It argues that the inclusion of disabled children explicitly for the first time in children's legislation marked a necessary step in seeing disabled children as children first. Two main areas of concern about the effectiveness of the Act's implementation are highlighted. First, provisions in the Act for disabled children living away from home in health and education establishments have been widely ignored and are now seen as inadequate. Second is whether the provisions regarding short breaks (respite care) have been effective in providing the sort of support that families need at the required levels. The article suggests that passing legislation may be insufficient in itself to have much impact on the lives of disabled children.

This paper aims to investigate the unique issues childhood burn survivors experience in relation to sex education and sexual development.

Using a phenomenological approach, participants described their lived experiences with regards to sex education and the sexuality issues they encountered as child burn survivors. One‐to‐one semi‐structured interviews and a focus group were used to gather data, which were analyzed using a constant comparison method.

Results provide educators with better insight into the experiences of burn survivors as well as strategies for approaching sex education. Findings centered around five areas: exposure, sex education content, timing of sex education, characteristics of the educator and most appropriate methods of delivery.

Sexuality is a value‐laden topic that has the potential to increase apprehension and decrease willingness to discuss. As a result, the sample may not be wholly representative across age groups, concerns or social attitudes regarding sexuality present within this population. Additional limitations are also noted. Future studies, which utilize a mixed method approach with a larger sample of both adolescent and adult burn survivors, would increase the value and generalizability of the findings.

Research findings confirm that persons living with childhood burn injuries experience similar feelings and concerns regarding their sexuality as their able‐bodied peers which contradict social views. However, mainstream sex education falls short of addressing their unique needs and as such this study's findings provide strategies to allow for appropriate knowledge acquisition to ease the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Outlines the problems faced by women with disabilities, stating that previous research has not usually singled out this category. States that this category faces double discrimination because of disability and gender, with few role models to follow. Discusses the early education of this group and the use of residential schools. Concludes that much more research is needed in this area.

This is an invited short overview from a clinician working in a national secure inpatient setting which aims to focus on inpatient forensic services for adolescents with developmental disabilities.

The paper gives a brief overview of the needs of this population and the requirements for inpatient assessment and treatment.

This is a complex population who are referred relatively late to inpatient services, often after recurrent failings in residential services where mental disorders are commonly unrecognised. Comprehensive multidisciplinary assessment and treatment are required for this group.

This paper will be useful to a range of professionals dealing with adolescents with developmental disabilities who are engaging in offending and other high risk behaviours.

The purpose of this chapter is to reconsider the five principles of Elder et al.'s (2003) life course theory while centering disability status as an axis of inequality. We use existing research from the fields of the sociology of disability, disability studies, and aging and the life course to reflect on ways in which each life course principle can better attend to the experiences of disabled people. We start with the principle of time and place and discuss how cohort and period effects facilitate a deeper understanding of disabled people's experiences historically. Next, we analyze the principle of timing with an emphasis on cumulative dis/advantage to establish how disability status is an axis of inequality that contributes to the accumulation of social disadvantage and intersects with other axes of inequality (e.g., race, class, and gender). Then, we discuss the two principles of agency and linked lives and employ the concept of “bounded agency” to describe how ableism limits the agency of disabled people. Finally, we examine the principle of life-span development and discuss how adaptation and resilience are contextual and an ordinary part of human experiences. We conclude by offering recommendations for both life course and disability scholars to consider in hopes of broadening our theoretical and empirical knowledge about the lives of disabled people at every stage of the life course and the mechanisms by which resources are stratified by disability and age.

This article identifies the broad reasons why costs in children's care services might vary, illustrating them with examples from research literature relating to England. An intentionally broad use of ‘costs’ is employed. The literature has been neither systematically nor comprehensively reviewed but does include most of the recent work in the social care field. Articles have been selected to illustrate particular cost associations. This article finds that there is as yet insufficient research into the costs, cost variations or cost‐effectiveness of children's services. However, the findings provide guidance for decision‐makers as they try to understand how resources are currently deployed and why this might be.

People with learning disabilities have traditionally been denied access to a range of psychological therapies. Similarly, offenders with learning disabilities, particularly in prison settings, have largely been unable to access treatment strategies that are provided for offenders who do not have such disabilities. As a consequence these individuals are denied the opportunity to address their criminogenic needs and/or attend to their psychological welfare. This paper provides a brief exploration of the reasons and evidence for such practice, alongside the evidence that people with learning disabilities can successfully engage in psychotherapy. It is concluded that there is no evidence that would support the exclusion of people with disabilities from treatment options.