Disablity and life stages.

 

What does self-determination look like in a person with a disability?

It can look different to everyone and how people show it. However, some key differences need to be considered, as for people with disabilities there is generally a rough idea and goal posts of

School – primary and high school

Higher education- University, trade school - then if possible getting a driver's license,

Moving out of home for jobs, studying, or moving in with a partner.

For those who don’t know what to do going into a job, if possible

Then dating and relationships – and where those relationships end up. Most would end up in a committed relationship.

However, people with disabilities and I am talking about people with developmental disabilities, and in some cases physical disabilities there can be barriers that need to be considered, and in some cases they are.

These can be, the day-to-day impact of their disability, so in the case of physical disabilities things that people take

can be a struggle, getting dressed eating, being able to catch transport, having hobbies that are appropriate for their age, as even before covid social isolation was a very real issue as if you couldn’t work, most of your peer group was working so this made it very hard for people to socialize.

Then there is the other more delicate factor of family expectations in some cases the families pushed the person to consider their path and were very supportive of it and helped them however what seems to be more common is that people's families want to protect them and this can stunt growth, and lead to frustration and a fundamental lack of understanding of how the world actually works.

So things like study or further education are considered out of reach of the person and the family gets frustrated when to person tries to push back to develop some sort of independence.  It seems to me that there is a perception of how to do disability right and this has been a big thing in developing day programs and sheltered workshops.

However, these programs cater to a very small population of people with disabilities, this is seen in the way they are rolled out.  So I see that there is a perception of how to do disability “right,” however there is no right way to live, so there is no right way to do disability.  I will do a further post on the challenges of being high functioning and disabled. As a family can be very overprotective and this can lead to some interesting issues, and delayed development that could be prevented if the person was supported in the right way, as generally, we need to work twice as hard to get to the place others are at, and in some cases, we get frustrated because we know if we had the right support we could achieve it however due to some people not seeing the potential this is not considered.