Caring for my child with disabilities will place enormous stress on my family.

Caring for a child with disabilities does place substantial stress on a family, challenging family members in
every aspect of their lives. However, more and more resources exist to help reduce this stress. Most states
now offer family support programs with a range of services, including respite, counseling, parent training,
cash subsidy programs, and recreational and after-school activities. Government funded respite services are
available in most communities, ranging from in-home assistance to overnight care. And local non-profit
organizations such as United Cerebral Palsy: provide parent and sibling support groups, resources centers
and learning libraries, information, referral aid, and assistive technology services. These are often in
addition to concrete services which include programs for early intervention, preschool and school-age
special education, adult recreation, and residential care, as well as healthcare, employment assistance, and
more.
My child will never be able to walk.
When a child is very young, it is generally too soon to make a judgment about his or her long-term physical
abilities. There are many complex issues that will come into play from a healthcare and rehabilitation
perspective. A child’s self-motivation for physical independence also plays a key role. A parent can get
connected by networking with other parents, as well as by asking their pediatrician to recommend an
agency, hospital, or clinic that can provide the orthopedic evaluations comprehensive medical care, and
physical therapy.
My child will never be able to communicate.
All children communicate in one from or another. Many children benefit from ongoing speech therapy. For a
child who has limited speech or difficult-to-understand speech, there are an increasingly wide array or
augmentative/alternative speech systems available. Young children learn with simple communication
boards, basic “yes/no” switches, and sign language. As children grow older and gain the ability to operate
more complex communication systems, they typically graduate to more sophisticated and high-tech
electronic devices. From the parent’s perspective, it is important to find an educational program or in-house
service that is savvy about speech therapy and augmentative communication systems, and introduces these
services at the earliest point possible. Your local school district or county health department can direct you
to speech and augmentative communication services in your community.