Kathy Luparello

Dear special needs parent, Some people will never get what it is like to walk in our shoes. No matter how many times we try to explain our situation, our child, the challenges our family has to face—no matter how many details we share—the reality is that most people won’t get it. And some people…

My son, Sam, always best handles instructions or requests of him if he feels he has a good, solid understanding of what’s going on. Not just the nuts and bolts of the situation, but most importantly, the reason for it. If we ask or tell him to do something, one of his first responses is usually,…

I am reading Sealed Orders, an autobiography by the Christian mystic and healer, Agnes Sanford. Sanford was an amazing woman of God—writer, speaker, healer, founder of a school of healing—who struggled for years with depression. She writes, “The basic trouble was that I had forgotten whence I came, and I did not know the sealed orders…

Those of us caring for children with disabilities are used to hearing people say things like, “They look fine to me.” There are, indeed, some children with disabilities that have few visible appearances that would make them stand out as special in some way. But even when there are noticeable things and people say that to…

My kids were never good sleepers. Children with high functioning autism rarely are. But last night something strange was afoot. I can sense it before it happens—before the audible shuffle and bump. My spidey senses, that with which we mothers are all graciously endowed after growing people between our innards, had me dead asleep one…