Reflections from a Different
Journey:
What Adults with Disabilities Wish All Parents Knew
by Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D., & John
D. Kemp, Co-Editors
Most parents of children with disabilities lack personal experience
with adults with disabilities. Hearing from people who have
lived the disability experience can provide all parents with
essential information about the possibilities for their children.
Reflections from a Different Journey (McGraw-Hill, April 2004;
Hardcover, $18.95) edited by Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D., and John
D. Kemp, includes forty inspiring and realistic essays written
by successful adult role models who share what it is like to
have grown up with a disability.
Each eloquently written essay is
an insightful source of wisdom, inspiration, and emotional
support as well as a rare glimpse inside the lives and minds
of people with many different disabilities—cerebral
palsy, Down syndrome, autism, learning disabilities, deafness,
blindness, mental illness, developmental disabilities, spina
bifida, muscular dystrophy, attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, congenital amputation, and chronic health conditions.
In preparing their essays, the authors
were asked to write about something they wished their own
parents had read or been told while they were growing up.
The essays, which demonstrate that, first and foremost, people
with disabilities are human beings with the same needs and
desires as people without disabilities, are arranged thematically: "Love and Accept Me as I Am" essays
express appreciation for parents who provided unconditional
love and a sense of belonging and who accepted them as whole
people-including that part of them considered to be a disability.
"Parents Are the Most Important Experts" essays
describe how their parents addressed their unique needs and
became the most important experts in their lives.
"Parental Expectations" essays
present different approaches to expectations and standards
and encourage every child to have hopes and aspirations.
"Sexuality" essays explore
how all children need to talk about and learn about intimacy
and sexuality.
"Education About Disability" essays
explain the importance of why parents and children need to
learn all about a child's disability and how to facilitate
necessary accommodations so that each child can enjoy a full
life.
The foreword is written by Marlee Matlin, the Academy Awarding
winning actress who is deaf. The Afterword is written by the
book's co-editor, John D. Kemp, a successful attorney and advocate,
who was born without arms and legs.
Brimming with a wealth of life-affirming lessons, Reflections
from a Different Journey offers many specific suggestions for
parents as well as older children with disabilities, family
members, and the education and health care professionals who
serve them.
Stanley D. Klein, Ph.D., a clinical
psychologist and frequent speaker to parents and health care
and education professionals from Brookline, Massachusetts,
has worked with children with disabilities and their parents
for fifty years and has received numerous national awards
for his work. A co-founder and former editor-in-chief of
Exceptional Parent magazine, Dr. Klein has co-edited many
books on children with disabilities. John D. Kemp is a successful
Washington, DC attorney and lifelong advocate for the rights
of people with disabilities. With the law firm of Powers,
Pyles, Sutter & Verville, P.C., Kemp represents
the legal and professional interests of a wide range of for-profit
companies and not-for-profit organizations. Kemp has been recognized
for his work on behalf of people with disabilities, including
service as the 1960 National Easter Seals Poster Child, 1991
membership in the Horatio Alger Award of Distinguished Americans,
the Freedom of the Human Spirit Award from the International
Center for the Disabled and an Honorary Doctorate of Laws and
the Distinguished Alumni Fellow Award from his alma mater,
Washburn University Law School. "These essays will educate,
inform and entertain every parent who wants to know how to
be the very best parent each can be," said Senator Robert
Dole.#
