As children grow and develop, they generally progress through learning a variety of self-help skills, such as dressing and undressing and taking a bath or shower unassisted. For your child who has a visual impairment and multiple disabilities, learning these skills may take longer than her typically developing siblings or age mates. In fact, she may always need support from you or someone else to complete these tasks. However, it is important that she learn […]
BY Dawn Doebler, MBA, CPA, CFP®, CDFA®, Senior Wealth Advisor ABLE accounts are an important planning tool alongside more-traditional techniques such as special-needs trusts. One financial challenge that many families with special-needs children confront is funding the ever-growing expenses that their child may need over their lifetime. With additional costs of important medical and support care often reaching over $100,000 per year for a special-needs child, many families look to special government programs to fill […]
Toileting, or elimination, is something everyone does throughout the day, so helping your child achieve more independence in this area is likely to be a high priority for you and your family. If your child is consistently dry for 1-1/2 to 2 hours at a time and can wake up from a nap without being soiled, she may be ready to learn to use the toilet. Although your child’s needs and abilities may vary from […]
Introduction The United States Census Bureau reports that approximately 56.7 million Americans have a disability. This report is for anyone—with or without a disability—who wants to interact more effectively with people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was conceived with the goal of integrating people with disabilities into all aspects of life, particularly the workplace and the marketplace. Sensitivity toward people with disabilities is not only in the spirit of the ADA, […]
CDC scientists published a report on the prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among 4-year-old children. This report is based on information from the Early Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. Early ADDM is a subset of the broader ADDM Network, which has been doing ASD surveillance among 8-year-old children since 2000. In this report, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summaries, scientists analyzed information from the health […]
