Caring for a child with a learning disability born into the family unit: Women's recollections over time

This is the authors' print-print version of an article published in Scandianavian journal of disability research which is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15017419.2010.540827Caring over time for a child/young adult with a learning disability requires that the family, and in particular the mother, negotiate their needs with services and professionals, and these negotiations are complicated further by significant behavioural issues in the children. This study reports on a series of interviews undertaken with mothers of children and young adults with learning disabilities and a history of challenging behaviours. The interviews were supplemented by documentary data from clinical and other notes in order to provide a more detailed view of the issues arising from caring over time. Detailed thematic analysis revealed five key themes demonstrating the cumulative effect of caring for someone with such complex needs, the centrality of that individual’s needs to the lives of those interviewed and the ongoing negotiation between family and professionals required in order for the former to work out how to continue caring both effectively and on their own terms. All the names of mothers and children are psuedonyms

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR PHYSIOTHERAPY1 1Lecture delivered to the Eighth Biennial Congress of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, Brisbane, May, 1960.

I have selected as the title of my talk “The Psychology of Individual Differences and its Significance for Physiotherapy” because, insomuch as physiotherapists deal with human beings, I believe that they should be acutely aware of the factors which cause the vast range of differences characterizing the people whom they see in their professional practice