CHAPTER
ONE
Introduction
Background to the Study
The contemporary world is filled with
a never ending array of challenges and numerous factors are responsible for
that, (Bennibor 2007). One of such challenges is the burden of caring for a
physically or mentally challenged child. The birth of a normal child can have a
significant effect on the family dynamics. For this reason, parents and other
children in the family must undergo a variety of changes to adapt to the
pressure of a new member (Hussain and Juyal 2007). They further stated that the
birth of a physically or mentally challenged child to a family constitute a
serious burden that can be very profound and pose obvious challenges to
parents. These challenges could include the time required for extra care, increase
financial demand, psychological and social burden among others.
Dykens
(2000) described physical challenge or disability as lack of ability relative
to a personal or group standard or norm which may involve physical impairment
such as sensory impairment limiting sensory function, or motor impairment
limiting mobility. Such physical disabilities include; deafness and dumbness,
blindness, being crippled, or the malfunctioning of some parts of the body
which limits the effectiveness with which a child can cope with the academic,
social and emotional expectations of the school and community. Mental challenge
on the other hand according to Hodapp and Dykens (2001) is a form of mental
retardation marked by I Q (intelligent quotient) score of less than 75 and
limited ability to carry out daily living skills. It includes children with Down’s
syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism among others. A person is mentally challenged
if he is unable to dress, feed, or otherwise care for himself or herself, to
hold a job or carry out most of other tasks needed to get through an ordinary
day.
Looking
at the prognosis of physically and mentally challenged children, Staney (2000)
stated that parents of physically challenged children know what their goals for
a child should be. Based on that, they can draw on his or her many capabilities
to help him or her achieve those goals. According to him, the motor and sensory
systems are not the only capabilities children have and parents of physically
challenged children can take advantage of even limited motor ability. A child,
who has one arm that is working well, can reach for things and show what he wants.
Even without good functioning arms, the child can convey ideas verbally or with
signals if he has sensory deformities. He or she can be meaningfully engaged to
enjoy life within the limits of his or her disabilities resulting in a good prognosis.
The prognosis for children with mild to moderate mental retardation is also said to be usually good since these
individuals can often become self sufficient to some degree. However, they may
require some educational, community, social, family and vocational support in
order to establish routines that will help them to function within the limits
of their challenges (Wilkipedia, 2007). The outcome is less promising for those
with severe to profound mental retardation. Those that survive, sometimes lack
the ability to perform basic routine activities like (toileting, bathing, feeding
or dressing themselves including basic academic skills like reading, writing
and arithmetic) indicating that the prognosis is poorer than for those children
with physical challenges.
The
presence of a physically or mentally challenged child in a family can lead to
family disintegration if not properly handled, even in the happiest of families.
It can cause a clash between parents, siblings, and individuals within a family
to the extent that family cohesiveness may be threatened or even destroyed.
Ambert (1999) stated that the everyday task of feeding, toileting, traveling
and communicating are much more physically and emotionally demanding for
parents who have children who are physically or mentally
challenged. These challenges require that parents should adjust or cope using
different coping strategies in order to be able to handle the situation or
reduce the weight of the burden.
Coping involves using
psychological resources and strategies that help to eliminate, modify, or
manage a stressful event or crisis situation (Mc Cubbin & patterson 2000). It
is the process of managing tasking circumstances, expending effort to solve
personal and interpersonal problems and seeking to master, minimize, reduce or
tolerate stress or conflict. The coping ability of parents with physically or
mentally challenged children depends on several factors such as the amount and
severity of pressure from individuals and the society, body constitution, culture,
educational background, economic status, health predisposition, presence of
social support system and religious background (Hargreaves & Tizard, 1999).
Kwai-Sang Yau and LI- Tsang (1999) added that parents’ ability to cope with the
stresses of raising their children with special needs depends on the family’s
interpretation of the crisis event, family’s sources of support, resources
available and family structure. Parents need to adopt coping strategies that
will enable them manage the challenging situation of caring for their
physically or mentally challenged children. The coping strategies utilized by
parents was considered in four dimensions; Personal/family support coping
strategy, external social support coping strategy, spiritual support coping strategy
and denial coping strategy. Pritzalaff (2002) stated that Personal/Family
support coping is the ability of individuals and families to actively engage in
acquiring support from themselves and family members (e.g.having confidence in
oneself and maintaining cooperation and oneness with partner). External social
support means acquiring support from friends, neighbors, extended family,
agencies, church group and institutions. Spiritual support is finding comforts
in a higher supernatural belief system (e.g. having faith in God). Denial
coping strategy includes efforts to deny, minimize or escape the stressful
situation (e.g. I try to deny the existence of the problem).
No comments:
Post a Comment