(Download) "Early Childhood Service Delivery for Families Living with Childhood Disability: Disabling Families Through Problematic Implicit Ideology (Essay)" by Australasian Journal of Early Childhood " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Early Childhood Service Delivery for Families Living with Childhood Disability: Disabling Families Through Problematic Implicit Ideology (Essay)
- Author : Australasian Journal of Early Childhood
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 241 KB
Description
APPROXIMATELY 317,900, OR 8.3 per cent, of Australian children are classified as having a disability (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2006), and while impairment(s) vary greatly across a continuum, about half of all children with disability are described as having a 'severe or profound core activity restriction' (AIHW, 2004, p. xii). Almost all children with disability are cared for by their families within the family home. Although biomedical and economic explanations of disability remain paramount in some domains, increasingly the role of social, cultural, economic, environmental and political factors that act to 'disable' persons with impairment is emphasised within Australia and elsewhere (Goggin & Newell, 2005; Schalock, 2004; World Health Organization, 2001). Thus, while 'impairments' might restrict participation in activity, they are not necessarily the cause of disability. Disability activists within Australia prefer the term 'person with disability' (Goggin & Newell, 2005) but my use of this term is done with critical acknowledgement of the structural barriers that ultimately determine the health and wellbeing of families living with childhood disability. In this paper I reflect upon the implicit ideology underlying early childhood service delivery for families living with childhood disability. I first consider the notion that the provision of care in the home by the family is ideal. Second, I discuss how parental involvement in professionalised care and therapy is often confused with the responsibility for it, especially for mothers. Third, I review the impact of childhood disability on the family, and in particular focus on the economic hardship, the potential for relationship difficulties with spouses and other children, restrictions in the ability to participate in leisure activities, loss of friendship networks, and the negotiation of complex and dense support services and systems of care. Fourth, I review the notion of chronic sorrow for families living with childhood disability and discuss the utility of the concept. Finally, I demonstrate that childhood disability services may replicate and exacerbate existing social, cultural and economic inequalities. Assumption 1: Care in the home by the family is ideal