Helen Featherstone writes in her book A Difference in the Family about the experience of parents with a seriously disabled child. Featherstone is herself the parent of such a child and is also a professional educator. Her book is a mixture of information drawn from interviews with parents of disabled children, professionals who work with such children, and her own experience as the mother of a disabled child. Her focus is on the family and the way the dynamics of the family may be reshaped by the presence of a disabled child. She note at the outset that there is some difficulty in defining disability, but she also notes that this is not her present concern. In her own case, the fact that she had a disabled child redirected her professional interests so that she shifted from her focus on the effect of preschooling on the development of young children to the field of special education, and she began investigating this area by talking to parents, teachers, professors, and others who had experience in the field. She says that her book is about he education in this area. She finds that she must try to combine her intimate knowledge of being the mother of such a child with the analytical tools she has acquired from her professional training. She also says she wants to help anyone involved with a handicapped child to learn to build bridges between themselves and others with a similar experience so all can learn from the common situation.
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