The Other Child - Linda Scotson

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Résumé :
In The Other Child, Linda Scotson looks at the impact on a child at the arrival of a handicapped sibling. Lili, Linda Scotson's daughter, was only two when Doran was born, and she has been Doran's companion, motivator, carer-in fact, sister extraordinaire. In helping Doran, she has had to cope with other problems-with the loss of her father, ill health, and her own minor neurological difficulties. But she has done so with courage and determination. What do siblings lose, growing up with a brother or sister with brain injury-and what do they gain? How does the hostility and indifference of the outside world affect these children's lives? Becoming carers themselves, do they miss out on parental care from weary and overstretched parents? How do they reach an understanding, often when very young, of what their injured sibling can and cannot do? Shining through these stories is the love, the humor, and the constancy with which these children approach their very difficult family position-many of them, in adulthood, continuing to care for the handicapped companion of their childhood. By drawing attention to these children, Linda Scotson not only pays tribute to their qualities but also shows how unjust the system is towards those parents struggling to keep their brain-injured child within the family. She argues for a greater network of support systems for the healthy siblings and a greater understanding of the new home treatment programs for injured children-programs in which the whole family, as a team, can participate. This will be an invaluable book for parents of brain-injured children, and for all those professionally involved in the care of such families.--Dust jacket....

Biographie:
s first book, Doran: Child of Courage. He was diagnosed with severe athetoid cerebral palsy, visual impairment and severe bilateral hearing loss. His Doctors prognosis was that Doran would never be able to sit, stand, walk or feed himself, was unlikely to have any form of speech and would not grow normally, any understanding he might have had would be frustrated by his sensory motor loss.
They suggested, because of the gravity of Doran&rsquo...

Sommaire:
Linda Scotson was born in Manchester in 1945. She studied painting at the Central School of Art in London, and then taught at Croydon Art College, exhibited widely, and wrote poetry. She is the mother of her daughter Lili and her son Doran. Doran developed a blood condition shortly after birth which resulted in severe brain injury. The story of his rehabilitation is told in Linda Scotson'...