Special Children

They call her "special." But I call you, my dear volunteers, special. You are the ones who are extraordinary, unique, rare, different and so wonderful. You are the ones with special souls...

I used to think that the cliché about children gaining from having a special needs sibling was just some nice words. Maybe in other people's houses, maybe with a different type of special need, but not in our home, not with Yisroel...

This morning, before she went off to school, I said to her, "Sheina, today is your birthday, you are thirteen years old." She showed me thirteen in ASL (American Sign Language)...

Now that I have been granted the child that I prayed for, and he does have special needs, I am finding that specialness more than I bargained for...

We went back to the psychiatrist and she saw right away what it really was. My beautiful, brilliant, funny, compassionate son was literally climbing her bookcases, screaming like a wild animal...

It was back to basics. Actually, it was back to much less than basics. It was back to virtually nothing...

I remember looking at the doctor and thinking: "You are not G‑d. That is your opinion, but anything can happen..."

As his 13th birthday loomed closer, my husband and I began to discuss what we should do. At first we thought nothing at all. How could we ‘celebrate’ a ‘Bar Mitzvah’ that wasn’t? But then we realized that there was much that we did need to celebrate.

Paralyzed from the waist down and wheelchair-bound since infancy, she was at one time in a special school for special kids, on a special bus with a special helper...

As a child I believed I sang very well, and this assumption was never threatened until I auditioned for my junior high-school choir...

My oldest son, Gabriel, who just turned six, was born with a rare craniofacial birth defect, called Treacher Collins Syndrome. The past few weeks have been a bit stressful, as we were preparing for Gabriel's ninth surgery...

He kept mentioning “Freedom Rules,” and that’s where he really got me thinking. How can there be rules in Freedom?

"For every ounce of effort we give these children, they give back tenfold." Chaya is the mother of six biological children, including a Down's syndrome son and three adopted Down's kids who were tragically abandoned by their parents, at birth or shortly afterwards

Autism is a frightening word to parents. Children can have it, adults can have it. But what is it? Why does it happen? And how do you parent an autistic child?

As a teenager I used to think if I could just see into my crystal ball and know who I am going to marry and what my life would be like, I could understand today better. But would knowing my future have truly gotten me through the day or the experience of that moment?