Saturday, May 3, 2014

One important link for special needs parents in Oregon

If you have an intellectually disabled child in Oregon and are Catholic, you want this link. The Office for People with Disabilities runs adaptive mass around the state and a retreat for the families every year.

4 comments:

Theodore M. Seeber said...

It's unfortunate how many invisible disabilities get swept under the rug because they're not obvious enough to attract the attention of those around you. When my daughter's RA flared up, everyone noticed. There were questions asked. There were many appointments.
It's hard. It's hard to face the reality, as a parent, that there may be A Problem. It's also hard to cope with the fall out of a disability. So if we can convince parents and caregivers to look at the equation (that is, problem or problem plus diagnosis) it might do more toward getting help for them and the child.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

There's also a class-based stigma that has been revealed recently- autism is being diagnosed at a much higher rate for poor people for the simple reason that they're dependant upon and eligible for certain government services. Rich people also are more likely to get their kids tested and the help they need. But middle class people aren't eligible for the services and the problems often don't actually appear until the kid starts falling behind socially in kindergarten- far too late for early intervention.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

I'm the last person to advocate for state control of the pre-K set, but it seems that we're really dropping the ball for this age group. It's a problem for a number of learning delays.

Theodore M. Seeber said...

My son's diagnosis is different, but in a way, we were lucky I was out of work when he was born and the Washington County Oregon Health Nurse was nervous about Stay At Home Dads. We had in-home well baby checkups weekly, then biweekly, then monthly as long as we were on WIC.

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