Disability, as defined by Berger (2004, p. 524), refers to "a persons inability to perform activities that most others can." Tragically, while most expectant parents can anticipate the birth of a child with no major physiological abnormalities, birth defects, or developmental deficits that occur as the child matures, about 3 percent of all babies born in the United States each year have major malformations leading to various disabilities while another 4 percent have severe problems such as deafness or mental retardation that become apparent in the first year of life (Berger, 2004). Approximately 15 percent of all children are born susceptible to learning problems of various sorts, such as difficulty in developing language or social skills. At issue in this essay is a discussion of the many challenges facing parents of children born with severe disabilities. These challenges, said Berger (2004), often include difficulties in financing the cost of necessary care, a lack of support for severely stressed parents, difficulty in parent-child bonding, parental conflict and marital disintegration, and lapses in care needed to support the child's optimum development.
The variety of severely disabling conditions that can occur is astounding (Hunt & Hunt, 2004). Major congenital malformations (including spina bifida, Downs Syndrome, cleft pallet, missing or atrophied limbs, and so forth) are linked to a variety of causes including chromosomal abnormalities (6 percent), single-gene defects (7 percent), environmental factors (7 percent), multifactorial inheritance (25 percent), and unknown sources (54 percent) (Berger, 2004). Advances in diagnostic testing including amniocentesis now provide information to at-risk pregnant women and their partners about possible defects and, should the couple so choose, permit early term abortion. However, as noted by Berger (2004), many infants with severe disabilities are born without any prior kn...