Common themes between Let Me Hear Your Voice and the selected article:
1. In the article it talks about the grieving model that parents go through. Catherine in, Let Me Hear Your Voice went through this grieving process. She experienced the denial, anger and frustrations that parents of ASD children go through. (Toni)
2. Another common theme was the everyday frustrations that mount and greatly affect the families of ASD children. Catherine many times felt she had to leave the room while her children had meltdowns when working with workers. Another example of everyday frustrations would be her son’s constantly crying for hours. When we hear a child cry for a period of time we feel stressed, we want to help the child and find out why they are crying? For Catherine and her family this frustration was a constant, all of us can see how extremely taxing this would have been! (Toini)
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We also could see that the stress to balance the whole family’s needs affected Catherine. It was an intense strain on everyone, Daniel and Anne-Marie included. According to the article of A model of stress in Families of children with developmental disabilities: clinical and research applications, stress is a daily hassle paradigm. It suggests it is not necessarily a major life event that is stressful but all the everyday frustrations and hassles associated with it. (Keke Tang)
4. Other life stressors – the child with ASD is not the only stressor the family is facing in Let Me Hear Your Voice. The article suggests that it is important for a clinician to take these stressors into account when working with a family. Clinicians are potentially able to assist with the other stressors in a family’s life by providing referrals and other appropriate suggestions.
The Stress Model we have chosen is the Double ABCX Model. This model is suitable for our movie family because we are able to see the problems that the family has faced. The model encompasses the major variables of interest in the movie, including our pre-crises, crises, and post crises. We can see this in the first marriage, the divorce, and the second marriage; as well as everything in between. Many of the stressors are found in many categories. This is because they were not resolved by the crisis- divorce. Resources fall into many categories as well, because how they are used changes how they affect the family system.
One theme is two-way relationships that both pull parents and children together whilst pulling them apart. This is illustrated when the mother describes an “old rope, Tightening about my life”. This represents a submerged rope (representing the invisible forces of attraction between the mother and daughter) attached to a boat in a harbour (representing the mother and daughter). It may seem like the boat and harbour are free, but when they try to go their own ways, the rope tightens and pulls them back together. This is not the only theme that reveals the complexities of the parent-child relationship. Another theme is how parents can be torn when their children grow up. The mother seems to be happy that her child is growing up and becoming independent but also seems to resist it. This can be seen from the description of traffic lights. The cars “taking turn” could represent the mother and daughter going on their own paths. The traffic lights alternate between letting and not letting cars through. The lights mirror the sporadic emotions of the mother. It is like they can’t decide to let the girl go on her own independent way in
Unfortunately, a lot of parents may have a difficult time accepting their child, and coping with their needs and the responsibilities. From the book “The Elephant in the Playroom,” some families dealt with depression and physical and mental deterioration of their health. These struggles were shown in the story by Laura Cichoracki. Laura’s son’s name was Patrick. Patrick was a 6-years-old boy with autism. “I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t showering regularly, I wasn’t sleeping well” (Brodey, p. 64). I also read the story told by Susan Marrash-Minnerly, which highlighted emotions that parents face. Susan also shed light on how wonderful children with special needs can be to a family, such as her ten-year-old third grader who had autism. Susan talked about how it was normal to feel angry at times, especially with the ups and downs a child’s disability may come with. “When I look back, I want to tell other parents that a child’s future is worth grieving over – but it’s not the end of the world” (Brodey, p. 75). After reading these stories, it became apparent to me that families who are raising kids with special needs, need support, kindness, and available resources. “I was fortunate to be surrounded by other moms who understood my pain…who could be supportive and emphatic.” (Brodey, p. 67). Overall, educators can use this kind of information that was shared in “The Elephant in the Playroom” about family systems and risk/resiliency by creating lines of open communication between families. This is to connect parents together that share similar struggles. By creating open communication is can allows for the teacher and parents to be on the same page when it comes to the issues affecting special needs students and
Let Me Hear Your Voice is about a woman who has a daughter named Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie seems to be developing normally. Slowly the little girl begins to withdraw and perform repetitive tasks. Worried that something is seriously wrong with her two year old daughter, Catherine takes her to several different doctors, starting with her pediatrician. This doctor recommends that Catherine take Anne-Marie to a specialist, who diagnoses her with “Infantile Autism.” Several other professionals agree with this conclusion. After doing a great deal of research, Catherine decides to start a home based program for her daughter. Anne-Marie goes through a series of different therapies and eventually “recovers.” During this time period, Catherine becomes pregnant and has a happy baby boy. His name is Michel. Again, around the age of one and a half, Michel begins to decrease his talking and to throw severe temper tantrums. Catherine, now being able to relate to some of the symptoms, take Michel to the specialists. Several of them agree o...
...en-year-old girl”. She has now changed mentally into “someone much older”. The loss of her beloved brother means “nothing [will] ever be the same again, for her, for her family, for her brother”. She is losing her “happy” character, and now has a “viole[nt]” personality, that “[is] new to her”. A child losing its family causes a loss of innocence.
The author clearly shows how his childhood effected his adulthood, making in a living example of what he is writing about allowing the audience to more easily trust what he is writing about. Instead of using factually evidence from other dysfunctional family incidences, the author decides to make it more personal, by using his own life and comparing family ideas of the past to the present.
...parents were much more successful in the working world encouraged him to complete many daily activities such as choir and piano lessons. His parents engaged him in conversations that promoted reasoning and negotiation and they showed interest in his daily life. Harold’s mother joked around with the children, simply asking them questions about television, but never engaged them in conversations that drew them out. She wasn’t aware of Harold’s education habits and was oblivious to his dropping grades because of his missing assignments. Instead of telling one of the children to seek help for a bullying problem she told them to simply beat up the child that was bothering them until they stopped. Alex’s parents on the other hand were very involved in his schooling and in turn he scored very well in his classes. Like Lareau suspected, growing up
People label things as “normal” because they have become habituated with these things. Beth Harry’s book, Melanie, Bird with a Broken Wing, her ideal view of a mother is challenged when she gives birth to a child with cerebral palsy. Through her story, she provides an insight into what she felt as a mother of a child with a disability and her journey up until Melanie’s death. The memoir left me with mixed emotions because, in the beginning, Harry expressed her thought of wanting her child to die, if the child had caused any trouble. Harry challenges my core beliefs and values, however, through Melanie, I was able to see Harry grow as a mother and a person. The little ackee seed sprouted a new perception for her mother, as well as it did for
Dan and Betsy go through their emotions on hearing about Samuel condition of cerebral palsy. The roll coaster of emotion they felt. As a parent I could relate to their emotion of having a child with disabilities. I would love my child regards of condition but the emotion I would feel would be fear. Dan and Betsy both went through fear; asking themselves what about his education, and interaction with others. I would have those same question; as
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When it comes to coping to stressful situations, Subject N just tries to not think about it and talk about something else. Her mom brought up her upcoming spelling test that was happening that Friday and Subject N just nodded her head then started talking about this new book she started to read. It was not only interesting to see how Subject N reacted to stress but also how her mom reacted to her reaction. Her mom wasn’t surprised at all, and she just went back to cooking food without any further discussion about the spelling test. I think that ties right back to her indulgent parenting style but also I don’t think she
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Rosa and Miguel are experiencing relationship problems due to developmental and financial stressors. This has created a turbulent home environment. Miguel’s verbal abuse and open hostility has Rosa emotionally overwhelmed. He is not physically abusive; however, his anger is upsetting the household. The children are also displaying emotional and physical stress related symptoms. Rosa and Miguel come from emotionally unstable homes, which has impacted their ability to communicate and manage their emotions. Due their inability to communicate in a productive manner, they have sought help to resolve their problems. Both have expressed the concern that they are repeating the harmful behavior they experienced as children. They
The case study analyzed is about Korean boy, David, who is five years and ten months old with Asperger’s syndrome and lives with his family in the United States. His grandmother, Mrs. Soon, is the main caregiver and she is in denial as she does not want to accept the fact that her grandson has developmental issue. According to her, David is just a very talented boy and he does not need any help. David’s parents have a different point of view and want to find ways to persuade Mrs. Soon to allow their son to have services advised by
...as an individual, still finding a sense of closeness with their caregiver. The perceptions that are formed as an infant are progressively construed to structure who we are, what we do, and why we do the things we do. These long-term effects appear to grow and are constructive as internal working models which shape our behavior, self perception, sense of self, and our expectations of other people.