Transitions for children with special needs - Literature review Example

These points of transition are especially significant in the lives of the child and their family, involving considerable stress and challenges for families, children, receiving, and sending staff. Several theoretical frameworks exist that are significant in the conceptualization of the process of transition, especially for children with special needs. These include the Bio-ecological Model, the McCubbin and McCubbin Resiliency Model of family stress, adjustment, and adaptation, and the Conceptual Transition Model.

Avalos-Snyder & Haugen (2014: p54) expounds on the Bio-ecological Model, discussing its focus on the development of children with special needs within the context of their immediate environment and their family, as well as the more distal and larger influences portended by the wider community. Relationships and interactions are viewed as being influential on the child’s development, occurring with the passing of time. Transition of children with special needs to school is characterized in this manner, in which the child is placed in the middle of the entire process and is influenced by their interactions with the immediate environment.

McCubbin and McCubbin’s resiliency model of family stress, adjustment, and adaptation, as discussed by Rosenkoetter et al (2008: p34), concentrates on the vulnerabilities and strengths of the child’s family, such as the family’s ability to assess their child’s situation, problem solving, family functioning patterns, and their utilization of coping skills. The model uses these factors together in combination with consideration of the resources that are available to the family in its exploration of how these families adjust to change in the initial stages, as well as how they adapt to crises that they face.

Dockett et al (2011: p49) applies the resiliency model of family stress, adaptation,