Children with disabilities: support and inclusion

¶ … classroom instruction and are these ideas/strategies feasible for a particular classroom, can they be adapted, alter, or incorporated to benefit students with disabilities?

A Critique of the Journal Article 'Cultural Models of Transition: Latina Mothers of Young Adults with Developmental Disabilities' and Implications for Classroom Instruction

The journal article Cultural models of transition: Latina mothers of young adults with developmental disabilities was a qualitative examination of attitudes of Latina mothers of young adults with disabilities, toward approaches to the transitions of those young adults from school-age activities to more independent living. According to the authors: "Sixteen Latina mothers of young adults with disabilities participated in the study, recruited from an agency

serving low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking communities" (Rueda,

Monzo, Shapiro, Gomez, & Blacher, Summer 2005). The qualitative study emphasized five themes: life skills and social adaptation; importance of family and home vs. individualism and independence; mothers' roles and decision-making expertise; information access; and dangers of the outside world. Latina mothers were likely to see transition to adulthood as "home-centered, sheltered adaptation" rather than viewing it primarily as a prelude to "independent productivity"(Rueda, Monzo, Shapiro, Gomez, & Blacher).

Beginning at age 14, students are asked to begin thinking about their transition into adulthood. Transition is described in the article as occurring from ages 14 through 26. The major discrepancy in the thinking of the Latina mothers interviewed, in several focus groups, and the dominant cultural attitude in which they and their disabled children lived, had to do with the mothers' view of adulthood for their disabled children vs. that of the dominant culture (i.e., United States Caucasian society). The American educational and cultural view of transitioning disabled individuals into adult life within our society has much to do with issues of independence and productivity, that is, training the disabled to work; to be productive; to live as independently as possible, and to fit in as well as possible, in the outside world, with non-disabled others.

Latina mothers participating in the focus groups for this study, however, saw the concept of their disabled young adult children more as having to do with their continuing to increase their skills and behaviors toward independence (e.g., personal hygiene; light housekeeping; basic cooking) rather than living away from the family and becoming gainfully employed (often the underlying educational and transitional goal for disabled individuals within American society. This was the major area of disagreement, with American cultural expectations, among Latina participant mothers.

Implications of this point-of-view for classroom instruction are that, at least according to these Latina mothers, disabled students' families and the American educational system, with its emphasis on independence and productivity outside the home for disabled young adults, may be operating at cross-purposes, withy the messages received in the home about transitional "priorities" likely winning out over those of the dominant (school) culture. Therefore, implications for future classroom practice would be that classroom teachers and parents of disabled Latina/o young adults ought to work together more closely in helping these disabled young adults make the transition to adulthood. Further, educators of disabled students need to become aware that parents' view of transitional goals for their own children may differ substantially from those of United States schools. Transitional priorities that are valued in the home (e.g., self-care activities like those named by several of the Latina mothers in the study) might be more explicitly incorporated into classroom activities related to the transition into adulthood. I believe that these types of activities might be built into the existing matrix of feasible strategies for particular classrooms, and that it would likely benefit disabled young adult students like those sons and daughters of the Latina mothers interviewed, for schools to work more closely with parents. In that way, goals of parents for their disabled children's transitions would be more congruent withy goals of educators and schools. It is my belief that, as this study implies, it would be more beneficial to, and supportive of, disabled students and their transitions into adulthood if the messages received at home and at school supported rather than contradicted one another.