Do you want your disabled child’s therapy to be as effective as possible? (Yes, I didn’t say ‘special needs child’, did you notice that?)
To ensure that the therapy is as effective as it can be, take a conscious decision to become anti-ableist.
People don’t go from being ableist to not ableist overnight; anti-ableism is the journey.
Most professionals and parent groups don’t offer support for this journey. You’ll have to turn to actual disabled people.
But there’s a catch: many disabled people have a lot of internalised ableism, because their parents and the professionals and all the other people in their lives were ableist too. So, while learning from disabled people is a key aspect of becoming anti-ableist, be aware that some disabled people are going to reinforce the very thing you’re striving to change, and ableism looks different when it comes from them.
There you go. I’ve given you some keywords. I learned them from disabled people, and they’ve helped me understand why we get so many things wrong, and how to change things. Start the journey, so that your child’s therapy can be as effective as possible. You may make some mistakes, but they won’t be as bad as the ones you’ll make if you choose not to undertake the journey.