Parents of children with disabilities often experience a higher level of stress than parents of children without disabilities, regardless of categories of disabilities. Understanding parental stressors can lead to appropriate interventions and supports for these parents and their children with disabilities. This article discusses issues of…

"A Quick Guide to Special Needs" is an easy go-to guide for busy teachers, SENCOs [Special Educational Needs Coordinator], practitioners and anyone else who is interested in pragmatic solutions to the challenges of teaching children and young people with additional needs. Detailing over 60 conditions which cause people to have additional…

This guide presents information and clinical tools to implement the Anger Coping Program, an empirically supported intervention for students in grades 3-6. Practitioners are taken step by step through setting up treatment groups, teaching vital skills for reducing aggression and disruptive behavior, and building strong partnerships with teachers…

A high school program is described that uses an informal survey to help teachers identify potential academic, social, and career oriented problems facing mainstreamed handicapped students. These problems and suggested intervention procedures are listed for study/coping skills of time management, memory systems, listening ability, compensatory…

This article offers suggestions to help children with disabilities cope with terrorism. It stresses recognition of triggers and cues to anticipate rather than react to stress and offers tips for specific populations including autism; cognitive limitations; learning disabilities; visual, hearing or physical limitations; and severe emotional…

The author, a parent of a multiply handicapped child and a special education teacher, discusses the emotional stresses of parents with handicapped children and suggests ways in which teachers can help. (CL)

This document presents one module in a set of training resources for trainers to use with parents and/or professionals serving children with disabilities; focus is on coping with loss and change. The modules stress content and activities that build skills and offer resources to promote parent-professional collaboration. Each training module takes…

A model is presented for analyzing the influence of culture on the coping behavior of families with disabled children, using examples from families in Norway and Botswana. The model considers culture's impact on the process of coping through emotional patterning, expectations of life and future, life experiences, and actual opportunities. (JDD)

Educational opportunities for the disabled adults are, in theory, little different from those available to other adults. There are, however, obvious and less obvious extra difficulties in their paths, and the author offers some suggestions on how counseling can help overcome these. (Author/CT)

The study examined the stress associated with parenting a handicapped child experienced by parents living in rural Ontario communities. Availability of social support emerged as the major predictor of reduced stress. Family characteristics (e.g. cohesion and adaptability) and child characteristics (e.g. severity of handicap) emerged less often as…

This article argues that if professionals categorize parents as "in denial," unaccepting, or difficult, professionals may lose the chance to understand and learn from the parents. Recommendations are provided for rethinking denial and working with parents, including supporting parents' hopes and dreams for their child, suspending judgment, and…

An interview with parents of a child with cerebral palsy recount their struggles to find a diagnosis and treatment for their daughter and express their anger over the lack of information and help they were given by professionals. They emphasize the need for honesty and straightforwardness in professionals dealing with parents. (CL)

The excerpts from a speech to special educators suggest coping strategies for teachers: (1) adopt a consultative attitude; (2) develop the intellectual side of your professional identity; and (3) know your limits as a professional. (DB)

The role of school-related stress in the life of the disabled child is examined, and parents and teachers are given suggestions to reduce stress and help the child cope. Stress is defined as the emotional and physical reaction to the pressures that society places upon the child to conform and live up to expectations. Among sources of stress are…

The newsletter offers perspectives on the provision of family support services for families with disabled members. An introductory article by Madeleine Will, Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, stresses the impressive coping skills exhibited by many such families and their relationship to service professionals.…