III. More About the Children Available for Adoption, Page 4
Children with Mental Handicaps or Learning Disabilities
Children are born with a bewildering array of learning disabilities. Some, such as Down Syndrome and hydrocephalus, are apparent at birth. Others, such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and dyslexia may not show themselves until months or even years later, often after the adoption has become final. A distressingly high number of these babies need new families because their birth families reject them or their birth parents are themselves learning disabled. And there are babies and older children who were not born handicapped but who have been damaged by physical abuse or accident.
Remember that some mental handicaps have nothing to do with intelligence: for example, cerebral palsy, dyslexia and attention deficit disorders are all associated with normal or even above-normal intelligence, even though they make learning or communication difficult.
Sometimes a woman may have already decided before the birth that she wants her baby to be adopted and the mental handicap is simply a coincidence. Sometimes a child with an obvious mental handicap will be born to a family already near breaking point with older children and few resources who decide they simply cannot cope, even though they love their new baby. In other cases the parents may be ambitious upwardly-mobile types who delayed starting a family, and a mentally handicapped child is rejected because he doesn’t fit in with their self-image.
We once visited a friend in a maternity ward who had just had a baby girl, her third child. Across the room was the mother of three active little boys who had just had a Down Syndrome daughter. She and her husband simply felt overwhelmed and, although full of guilt and pain, they decided to have their new baby adopted. We would have taken their baby if we could have, but it was not possible. What we didn’t know was that our own first child was to be born in that same hospital in a few weeks, with learning disabilities which didn’t become apparent for several years.
There is a very wide range of mental and learning handicaps from the barely detectable, such as mild dyslexia, to the totally disabling, such as severe cerebral palsy. Some can be treated or the child can devise various coping strategies. Other children may need special schooling, even special boarding schools. Others may need total care throughout their lives, calling for physical strength and stamina as well as love, patience and skill.
People who don’t really know my 15-year-old son, who has Asperger syndrome and is learning-disabled, are missing something special. It is so wonderful to see him laugh and play his musical instruments, or gently touch a baby; so pleasure-giving to have a big hug from him or listen to him sing. He even invites people in off the street to attend church services he holds in our lounge. He’s fascinated by pinwheels or anything that spins or turns. He can identify car models by the patterns made by the turning hubcaps as they go past. He also knows the cars of all our friends and family by their tyre treads. I miss him terribly while he’s away at his residential school.
If the medical or educational experts involved with a child of any age who is expected to need adoption suspect that she has a mental or learning handicap, the placement will be postponed in order to make as thorough an assessment of the condition as possible. But many such children will be missed in early general medical examinations. Where an older child has had an unstable or chaotic start in life it is not always possible to tell whether an apparent educational problem is caused by lack of life experiences and can be overcome simply by placing the child in a normal family and giving him extra stimulation. Or the problem may be abnormal behaviour patterns learned from the adults in the family, which can be changed. Or they may be intrinsic handicaps, either congenital or caused by environmental factors such as lead poisoning. Or more than one factor may be responsible. It has also been known for social workers to try to disguise (or maybe unconsciously ignore) signs of mental handicap.
One of our children has mental handicaps that were obvious to us within days of placement, although his previous teachers, foster family and social workers all said he was developing well. Everyone was making unwarranted allowances for his previous life history and interpreting a real mental handicap as somewhat delayed but normally-progressing development caused by early years with a single, isolated, mentally ill mother: an easy mistake to make. To this day no one has been able to tease apart the root causes of his problems.
Adoptive families of mentally- or learning-handicapped children will usually be eligible for special help from the agency and the government. This can include equipment and other grants, an adoption allowance, help with school fees, and respite care.
Almost any kind of mental or educational difference from the norm will make a child subject to teasing or bullying by other children. If a child “looks normal” but the condition is shown in his behaviour in public, you will also have to be prepared for stares and possibly misguided meddling from ignorant adults who have no similar experience. This is especially true for conditions like autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, conduct disorder, or the attention deficit disorders.
If your new child needs specialist medical help or schooling you may need to live near a hospital or special school. Most mental and educational handicaps have self-help groups for families, providing information and welcome companionship for their members, while lobbying for better educational and medical facilities.
You may have special skills or empathy which would make you an ideal parent for a child with mental or learning handicaps. Perhaps there is a Down Syndrome child close to you in the family, or you work professionally with slow learners. Maybe you are dyslexic yourself. But even without prior experience you may find yourself drawn to the possibilities. If you are older and unlikely to otherwise be considered for a baby, but you really have your heart set on one, you could consider a mentally handicapped baby.
© Roger Ridley Fenton
