Strollerderby : special needs kids

Chicago Kids Held in Hospitals, Jails Instead of Foster Homes

Miriam Axel-Lute — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Remember this next time you hear people arguing that we should limit who can take care of, or adopt, kids in need (or that we shouldn't build a group home in their neighborhood):

Investigations by the Chicago Tribune have found that some kids are being held in psychiatric wards, hospitals, and jails long past when they were supposed to be released because there is no where for them to go. Often when they are released, they are being sent to placements that don't meet the recommendations made for them (such as residential drug-treatment first or a home ready for special-needs kids).

These are tough-to-place kids, mostly teens, with multiple problems. But as the article so clearly points out, there are few ways to better ensure that someone's mental health and behavior issues don't get better than to essentially imprison them somewhere where they are no longer getting the services they need/serving the sentence they received. The investigation was sparked by a 14-year-old who had been in a mental hospital for 105 days, when doctors had cleared to leave after a couple weeks. She hadn't been outside or to school that whole time.

It's sad enough to not be able to find an adoptive home for a mentally ill teenager, but nowhere for her to go outside of the psych ward? That's seriously depressing.

Photo by Skelekitten.

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Palin Mocks Autism Research

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:30:00 GMT

No one should be too surprised at this point to hear that one of McCain’s top advisers referred to Sarah Palin as a “whackjob.” Or that Alaska’s largest newspaper enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama for president. But it remains fun (in that stomach-churning way) to take a peak at some of the myriad reasons why Palin is widely disliked and distrusted even among her own people.

Take fruit flies, for instance. In Palin’s recent speech on special needs children, one of her more awkward blunders pertained to earmarks:

"Where does a lot of that earmark money end up, anyway? [...] You've heard about, um, these -- some of these pet projects they really don't make a whole lot of sense, and sometimes these dollars they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not!"

As the Huffington Post points out, fruit flies have been essential to autism research, showing that a protein called neurexin plays a huge role in proper brain functioning. Considering that this speech was supposed to be about helping special needs families, it’s truly baffling why Palin would have chosen to bash research that is widely known to be integral to understanding and treating autism.

Furthermore, fruit flies are the basic research tool of modern genetics, as anyone who has taken a biology class knows. To sneer at such research displays either extreme stupidity or a dangerous lack of concern for the opinions of the vast majority of her would-be constituents.

Photo: wizbangblog.com

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Anti-Palin Ad Targets Parents

Down Syndrome Teen Elected Prom King, Goes To College

Amy S.F. Lutz — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:23:00 GMT

I am a liberal, Jewish, pro-choice Democrat. I find Sarah Palin to be scarily conservative, excessively religious and alarmingly ignorant. I would never vote for any ticket she was on. I do, however, absolutely respect one thing about her: her decision not to abort her son with Down Syndrome, as 80% of parents do.

I never had to make that decision. But I do have a son with autism, and - like many parents of children with disabilities - have a big problem with the assumption that children who are less intelligent are somehow less human or deserving of life than "normal" kids. And more and more people with Down Syndrome are challenging those long-held beliefs all the time, by greatly exceeding society's expectations of what a "retarded" individual should be capable of achieving.

Take Zach Wincent, for example. This 19-year-old from Illinois hasn't let Down Syndrome keep him from racking up an impressive list of accomplishments, including being elected prom king, taking classes through the special needs program at Elgin Community College, coaching ice hockey, and working at Target.

Maybe, for some parents, working at Target isn't a high enough aspiration. I used to be one of those parents - before I had kids, I would imagine my future offspring and think, I don't care if they're cute, I just want them to be smart. But I've come to understand that even if my four typical kids go on to Ivy League educations and six-figure jobs, it's unlikely they'll make any greater contribution to society than their autistic brother, who's already inspired the college student who worked with him to go to graduate school and pursue research in autism. Maybe she will be the PhD who discovers the cure.

Now, my one great hope for all five of my kids is that they'll be happy. Zach Wincent seems really happy. And would anyone really suggest that his happy life is not just as valuable and important and inspiring as anyone else's?

Wincent Family Photo

Can a Mom be 'Too Dumb' to Parent?
Too Dumb to Parent: Part 2

Toys R Us Rolls Out Toy Catalog for Special-Needs Kids

Karen Murphy — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:03:00 GMT

Until you have a child who has special needs, you don't really realize how helpful it can be to find toys that are geared for the particular needs of your child. Regular age-appropriate guides for choosing or using toys can be thrown out the window, since often kids with disabilities have varying strengths and weaknesses that make choosing a toy based solely on age inappropriate and difficult.

It turns out that Toys R Us has been publishing their "Toy Guide for Differently-Abled Kids" catalog since 1994, but this year they are tripling efforts to get the guide into the hands of parents and others who can use it. I know that my son Eric's grandparents have difficulty choosing toys for him; he's almost 4 but his interests and abilities don't coincide with a typical four-year old's.

I feel a little odd promoting a huge retailer (and what handy timing, just in time for holiday shopping!), but sometimes you have to start somewhere, and I think I'll be checking out this catalog this year to see what inspiration it holds. That is, if we don't give up all our toys entirely.

Parents of Kids With Special Needs Discriminated Against at Work

Karen Murphy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:32:00 GMT

Most parents I know who have kids with special needs (defined as having behavioral or physical issues) don't think too much about their plight, or about it being much different from the plight of any other parent. Therapy? Okay. Medical appointments? Got it. A hospital stay because of open-heart surgery? You just do what you have to do, that's all. Sure, you might wish an easier life for your child, but there's not a lot of "poor me" going on, at least not in my experience.

But what if the very fact that you have a child with special needs adversely affects your ability to get or keep a job? Which clearly impacts your family's financial bottom line? And that's what's going on for many parents in this very position. So not only do you likely have increased medical/ therapeutical expenses, but you're also penalized financially in the workplace. "Behavioral, developmental and medical problems make it difficult to find child care, and fitting medical appointments and therapy schedules around work requires flexible hours and understanding employers." And often, employers are unwilling or unable to be flexible enough, which means that parents have to cut working hours to attend to their children. More than 5% of Maine parents in an upcoming study said they'd actually been fired over their situation involving their child.

We're all aware of discrimination toward pregnant women in the workplace, but this? Clearly, parents of all kinds need better support. And with one in ten Maine children reported as having a diagnosed disability or chronic health condition (up 30% from 1992 to 2005), I'm guessing that the numbers are similar in other areas. Which translates into a lot of parents impacted by the lack of support for them and their children, and a lot of families impacted adversely as a result.

What about you? Any horror stories to share?

An Insightful Exploration of Highly Sensitive Kids and Their Childhood Experiences

Alisyn — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:09:00 GMT

For anyone out there raising a Highly Sensitive Child, reading this post by Jenna Forrest may give you some insight into what childhood is like for your little one (if you haven't read perhaps the most helpful tool in any HSC's parenting arsenal, The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron, please, do it now, It has helped me and my little HSC tremendously).

Jenna writes, "I was dramatically sensitive, ultra-shy, pretty picky and painstakingly conscientious... My pastime of choice was studying the mysterious intricacies of the world from the safety of the shrub outside my front door... Being most anywhere else put me in a panic. I tried hard to disguise my most blatant shortcoming — eruptive emotion — but failed time and time again... My sentiment just didn’t want to be buried. It always would find the fissure in my willful mental dam..."

Sound like anyone you know? For HSCs, childhood is overwhelming at every turn - everything from outgrowing a beloved t-shirt, to welcoming a sibling, to having a poster on the wall moved, can send them into a spiral of confusion, panic, and overwhelming anxiety. The best analogy for life is like for an HSC that I've ever heard came from Elaine Aron: Imagine that a "normal" or non-highly sensitive person at an orange sorting factory - they will have 3 slots for sorting oranges: small, medium and large. Now imagine an HSC at the same factory - they will have 15 slots for sorting the same oranges: small, medium, large, extra large, bumpy, smooth, bruised, heavy, stem, no stem, etc. HSCs simply process more details - in any situation - than the average person. When they walk into a room, they take everything in: sights, smells, sounds, what people are wearing, how light or dark it is, pictures on the walls, who's there, who's not there... they get easily overwhelmed because their little brains are working overtime, and their little nervous systems are, too. This is why they crave, and truly need, so much downtime (and often naps or "time outs" well into their school years), and why they melt down so easily: they are simply worn out from noticing, and feeling, so much. It requires diligence on the part of an HSC's caregivers, to guide them in managing their emotions, and to remove them from overstimulating situations, before it becomes too much for them to handle.

If you are raising an HSC, there are many resources out there for you to use as tools in understanding what your child is going through, and how to help them understand it, themselves: the book mentioned above, this blog, and this website are excellent starting points. Hyper-sensitivity is a very real thing, affecting millions of people - if you have noticed that something is "different" about your child, but can't put your finger on what "it" is, take this quiz - it may help get you and your little one on the road to understanding, and ultimately, accepting, life as it is for your family.