Transitions and critical events in the family life cycle: Implications for providing support to families of children with disabilities

Abstract

Recognizing that parental adaptation to having a child with a disability is a life‐long process that occurs within the context of the family's developmental life cycle, psychologists are becoming increasingly interested in life‐cycle transitions and critical events of families with a child who is disabled. Professionals are just now beginning to examine systematically the potential for periodic changes in adaptation throughout a family's life cycle and ways in which professionals can support family members. This article reviews the literature regarding transitions and critical events that present challenges to families and the sources of support that families use during such times. Implications for providing support to families are discussed.

Grandparents' Involvement and Support in Families with Children with Disabilities

“…Such outcomes include increased tolerance and understanding of disability conditions; increasing patience, compassion, and altruism; strengthening of family relationships and cohesion; and positive relationships with school and community members=professionals (Ferguson, 2002;Hanline, 1991;Stainton & Besser, 1998;Sandler & Mistretta, 1998). Other studies have described families' positive of children with disabilities is relatively small.…”

Disability, spiritual beliefs and the church: the experiences of adults with disabilities and family members

“…Disability scholars and advocates criticize a Western medical model that views disability as pathology in need of repair (Olkin 1999) and persons and families as unable to cope or to participate effectively in self‐care related to the disabling condition. The ‘functional‐limitations’ framework influences assumptions about people with disabilities and contributes to a historical emphasis on frameworks of mourning, stress, and family dysfunction in families with disabled children (Hanline 1991). Contemporary perspectives suggest that the problem exists within the environment, rather than in the person.…”

Response to Chapters 9 and 10

“…This literature reflects a paradigm shift in how families with disabled children are viewed. Social construction and minority models for disability that view difference as normative, have replaced a historical emphasis on frameworks of mourning, stress, and family dysfunction in families with disabled children (Hanline, 1991). Previous family research anticipated and found pathology, reflecting a medical model for disability that emphasized personal deficits and dysfunction.…”