“The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex … than those of blindness. Deafness … means the loss of the most vital stimulus—the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in [human] intellectual…
Category: Special Needs Family (page 14)
Parenting Special Needs Magazine | Tech Tools for Growing Up
The new issue of Parenting Special Needs Magazine is here! Our article, “Tech Tools for Growing Up”, contains tools for caregivers of teens and young adults to help make the transition from childhood to adulthood a little easier to navigate. Perhaps you and…
Prenatal-Diagnosed Disabilities: Expecting and Raising a Child with Special Needs
September is Newborn Screening Awareness Month—but in modern obstetrics, much screening takes place weeks or months before the birth. Pregnancy has always been a time of extensive preparation—and of learning that things never go according to script. Not even when…
Make the First Five Count
Life inevitably includes unwelcome surprises; and for parents, among the most dreaded surprises is hearing that their baby isn’t as physically and mentally “perfect” as hoped. But if this happens to you, don’t let anyone tell you that your child’s…
Staying Healthy with a Disability
Do “disability” and “healthy” sound mutually exclusive? They shouldn’t be. An impairment to one physical or mental function doesn’t render the whole body useless: if anything, other functions become more effective as they’re exercised to compensate. Still, if the person…
Tech Tools to Get You Back to School Ready | Parenting Special Needs Magazine
Back to school doesn’t have to be stressful. Summer break is a time to relax, unwind, and refresh. Now that you and your children have (hopefully) had a chance to do that, we offer some ideas for getting back into…
Back to School, Second Stage: Settling in for the Long Term
Once a new school year isn’t quite so new, students and parents often discover new problems. The fresh routine becomes a rut. The syllabus looks as impossible as emptying the ocean with a teaspoon. The new friends turn unfriendly at…
Polypharmacy: Too Much of a (Usually) Good Thing
(This article is partly adapted from “Polypharmacy: What Is It and Are You at Risk?,” a workshop presented by Jay Gupta at the Houston 2022 Abilities Expo.) Polypharmacy: the simultaneous use of multiple drugs by a single patient, for one…
Counting Disability as a Blessing
Read Time 5 Minutes “It’s not the ‘challenge’ of having a child with special needs. It’s the privilege of having a kid with special needs.” –Alan Roesch, father of a teenager with neurological disabilities Whether a disability is diagnosed before…
School Assistance and Free Lunches: Programs Born in the COVID Era
Read Time 5 Minutes In 2020, as COVID-19 outbreaks forced education online, it became painfully obvious how heavily many families depended on in-person schooling. Among the federal assistance programs originated in 2020–21 were a number specifically designed to bridge the…