DIS 499/599: Overview: Module 1: Topic 2: Reading
Week 3: 1/28 - 2/3
To complete this assignment successfully you should:
1. Read each of the 5 articles.
2. Email your response to the following questions pertaining to the "Coping and Adaptation in Families of Children with Cerebral Palsy" article. This assignment is worth 15 points.
* Describe the five factors Lin associates with family coping behaviors?
* Does the family's coping behavior differ at various family life cycle stages? If so, how?
* Read the section on the reliability and validity of this research project. Does this change your opinion of the interpretation of the data or how you might use it?
1.
Lin, Shu-Li. Coping
and Adaptation in Families of children with cerebral palsy,
Exceptional Children, vol. 66 (2), pp. 201-218. This
article is available on the Cline Library, Course Reserves, Electronic Readings
for this class.
Email
your response to above article on "Coping" to Becky.Raabe@nau.edu
2. Michelmore,
Peter. The
Biker and the Baby , Reader's Digest, February, 2001. pgs.118-124 .
This article is available on the Cline Library, Course Reserves, Electronic
Readings for this class.
The next three articles will give you insight into the parents' and
grandparents' perspective.
To locate this article go to this site, http://www.nau.edu/library/indexes/social.html at the NAU Cline Library database index. Near the bottom of this list of social science databases you'll find WilsonSelectPlus, click to enter this database. Log in. In the "search for" text box enter "grandparents and disabilities" and start the search. This article will be third article on the list. Click the full text version.
Kingsley, Emily. "Welcome
to Holland".
"Where Are the Parents?"
Reprinted with permission from Sue Stuyvesant
This is a real mother who got angry when someone like a school board member or a legislator, said where are these parents? They are on the phone to doctors and hospitals and fighting with insurance companies, wading through the red tape in order that their child's medical needs can be properly addressed. They are buried under a mountain of paperwork and medical bills, trying to make sense of a system that seems designed to confuse and intimidate all but the very savvy.
Where are the parents? They are at home, diapering their 15 year old son, or trying to lift their 100 lb. daughter onto the toilet. They are spending an hour at each meal to feed a child who cannot chew, or laboriously and carefully feeding their child through a g-tube. They are administering medications, changing catheters and switching oxygen tanks.
Where are the parents? They are sitting, bleary eyed and exhausted, in hospital emergency rooms, waiting for tests results to come back and wondering: is this the time when my child doesn't pull through? They are sitting patiently, in hospital rooms as their child recovers from yet another surgery to lengthen hamstrings or straighten backs or repair a faulty internal organ. They are waiting in long lines in county clinics because no insurance company will touch their child.
Where are the parents? They are sleeping in shifts because their child won't sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night, and must constantly be watched, lest he do himself, or another member of the family, harm. They are sitting at home with their child because family and friends are either too intimidated or too unwilling to help with child care and the state agencies that are designed to help are suffering cut backs of their own.
Where are the parents? They are trying to spend time with their non-disabled children, as they try to make up for the extra time and effort that is critical to keeping their disabled child alive. They are struggling to keep a marriage together, because adversity does not always bring you closer. They are working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs in order to keep up with the extra expenses. And, sometimes they are a single parent struggling to do it all by themselves.
Where are the parents? They are trying to survive in a society that pays lip service to helping those in need, as long as it doesn't cost them anything. They are trying to patch their broken dreams together so that they might have some sort of normal life for their children and their families.
Where
are the parents? They are busy, trying to survive.
Once you have completed this activity you should:
Go on to Web Activity
or
Go back to Topic 2
Email
the instructor: Becky.Raabe@nau.edu..
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