Special Needs Child Research

Currently, there are millions of children in the United States that are living with some type of disability. Many of these special needs children are growing up with one or more siblings in their home. Most research that has been done involving children with special needs focuses on the special needs child or the parents, but it usually does not reflect the siblings of special needs children or how they are impacted. When thinking about this particular topic there are a number of different questions that may come to mind that we do not yet have the answers to due to our society’s lack of research on this matter. Some of these questions being, “what kinds of things influence this experience?” or “What makes one child love their special needs sibling and what makes another child dislike their sibling with special needs?” Other questions related to this topic are, “what is it like to have a sibling with special needs?” and “What can be done in order to make having a sibling with special needs a positive experience?” Rather than continuing to focus our research on the special needs child and their parents, our society should expand its research and begin focusing more specifically on the siblings of these …show more content…
It is very common in families that have a child with special needs as well as children that do not have special needs for one child to receive more attention than another. This can cause problems within the family for many reasons. If one child is receiving more attention than the other it may cause them to fight with their sibling or even resent them. It can also cause a child to fight with their parents. Having constant tension and anger within a family is not going to make the dynamics of a family very strong. All members within a family need to have a good relationship that has proper communication in order for the family to function