Care for children and adults with special needs

Parents of children with special needs strive to integrate their child with the normal environment. They try to make their child with special needs as independent as possible so that they are not felt as a burden to others after their lifetime. The constant worry of who would take the responsibility of their special needs child remains in them no matter how independent the child is.A country like India does not have a good social support network like the developed countries for the special needs adult to live alone which makes the worry worse for parents living in these countries.

Please share your thoughts about the "responsibility for the care of young adults and children with special needs." You can add it as a comment on this post or as an email to bugsdr@yahoo.com. I will publish them on this blog. Thank you for participating in this.

                                               
                                                                     
         Contributed by Lakshmi P Sarma(mother of a Down's syndrome adult)                                                            
                                             
Responsibility
Every person with special need requires support for their living once the natural parents move out of their life.Every parent strives to make them independent in their day to day activities, may be some skill to earn some finance and in addition provide some funds for maintaining themselves.
Who can take over this responsibility it is the siblings who understand the person with whom they were brought up.The special needs adult may be able to look up to them as a guardian and the sibling can easily accept the person with whom he or she has grown up.
After all these the worry persists- will they provide his emotional needs the love and affection to make them feel wanted?

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A green light to driving from National Down Syndrome Society

http://www.ndss.org/My-Great-Story/Videos/A-Green-Light-to-Driving/

Son rise

This was the title of a film I saw about thirty years ago.
I was in despair as my third child who was around two years was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome at that time. I was clueless as to what to expect and what should I do for him. The film was a turning point which gave me the determination and courage to raise my son to achieve his best potential.
Little did I know then that this was going to be a major turning point in my life.The road was challenging with a lot of sacrifices and venturing into new careers. I took my career path to working with persons with special needs and meeting their parents. This gave way to many new stints like translating books and simplifying texts to name a few.
My work led me to do a special education course which gave me an insight into the working of the human behaviours. With a better understanding of my son’s disability I was able to create a training plan with practical goals for my son .
Today Raghuram has progressed from an infant with delayed milestones to a young man with income generating skills, a good household helper and ability to take care of his personal needs.
My focus was to train him to have good social behaviours and have economical independence. I experienced failures which gave me motivation to further my work towards his development.
Today Raghuram is an obligatory but a dynamic part of our life helping us as he works like a clock. He is instrumental in my starting a training and working unit for intellectually impaired young adults.
At Strategy & Action for Independence Trust these young persons are trained in income generating activities. This includes screen printing, file and paper bag making, weaving, post press work like numbering, sorting perforation and binding.
The Unit functions in a quiet place by the side of a lake at Rajesh Nagar, Pallikaranai.

Lakshmi P Sarma

"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is a progress, working together is success." - Henry Ford