People with intellectual disabilities face health care providers who don’t have the knowledge or willingness to treat them. Despite severe need and higher health risks, people with ID are often denied health services. BY KRISTIN HUGHES SROUR, MBA If you want to help straighten her bones, dig a hole in the ground, have your daughter stand in it and then pack it with soil. Do this every day for six hours. This was the advice […]
by Judith Harding, Ed.D. Collaboration with parents of children with Down syndrome is legally mandated and pedagogically sound. This process allows parents and professionals to share in mutual decision making regarding the student’s educational program. Positive collaboration works because it makes available multiple perspectives, expands competence, and enhances the process for all involved. The benefits of positive partnerships between parents and professionals may result in improving academic achievement and functional life skills for students. Yet […]
Pictured above: Waisman researchers Susan Ellis Weismer (left) and Jenny Saffran (right) studied language acquisition in children with and without autism. Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, often have significant delays with expanding their vocabularies and other language skills compared to typically developing children. Yet, “we know very little about [language] processing in [children with ASD] or the mechanisms underlying it,” says Susan Ellis Weismer, a professor of communication sciences and disorders at […]
BY ALLEN FRIEDLAND, MD, FACP, FAAP I urge you to ask your current team for advice on where to look locally/regionally. It is not easy to do a web search to find these practices (wouldn’t that be nice). As a physician that has an interest in the care of young adults with special health care needs, I hear from patients and families all the time about how hard it is to find a physician that […]
SOURCE: Adapted from Guide to Toilet Training (American Academy of Pediatrics) The issue of when and how to begin toilet training can be particularly challenging for parents of children with special needs. While no parent wants to push an already challenged child to perform in ways that are impossible, the sense of accomplishment experienced when he does succeed in this important aspect of self-care can make an enormous difference in his level of self-esteem. Perhaps […]
