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What is in it:

• Addressing Sexuality Education
• What’s Next?
• 10 Tips
• 6 Rules to Follow for Providing Sex Education to Students with Disabilities
• Moving Beyond Denial, Suppression, and Fear to Embracing the Sexuality of People with Disabilities
• But I Thought…
• Sexuality and Teens with Significant Disabilities
• People with Mental Retardation and Sexual Abuse
• Individuals with Significant Disabilities and Consent to Sexual Activity
• Sexuality and Disability
• Clinical Info: Sexuality in Down Syndrome
• Resources

By Sylvia Rendon, education specialist, SESA

The issue of sexuality education creates feelings which are different for each individual. We were all brought up and raised in different families from different cultures and religions and have lived in a multitude of environments. This wide range of influences in each and every one of us brings a kaleidoscope of beliefs and feelings to the table when deciding what to do about sexuality education. Who should teach it? Who needs sexuality education? Which curriculum should be used? Should it even be taught? When it comes to socio-sexual development and education for persons with disabilities, more specifically those with significant disabilities, we are faced with even tougher questions. Continue Reading

By Gayla Valle, parent

All parents anticipate the stages of their children’s lives. We look forward to many of them – first words, first steps, first day of school. Others we regard with foreboding – first tantrum, first overnight away from home, first signs of sexual maturity. As the parent of two teenage sons, I didn’t look forward to these things – and I wasn’t prepared for them when they happened.

My younger son, now 14, has Down syndrome. When, in sixth grade, the unmistakable signs of puberty became apparent, I was surprised. I guess I thought that, with Down syndrome, walking, talking and many other developmental tasks are delayed… wouldn’t puberty be delayed too? Wasn’t it supposed to happen later – much later? Like maybe age 21? It seemed unfair, but puberty was right on schedule! In fact, for once, he was at the head of his class, but in a way I wasn’t prepared to deal with. Continue Reading

Talking about sexuality with your child with developmental disabilities.

• Use as many pictures as you can. Photos of family or friends can be a springboard for talking about relationships and social interactions.
• Use repetition with small amounts of information spaces out over time.
• Make a full body chart. This is a concrete way to show where body parts are and what they do.
• For more involved tasks (i.e., personal care during menstruation), try to break down the activity into several steps. Review the steps often and provide feedback and praise. Continue Reading

Rule #1: Follow General Curriculum

As a basic rule, follow the general curriculum in providing sex education to students with disabilities, says Fogel. So if students begin receiving sex education in fifth grade, this is generally when students with disabilities should start, too. As with other instruction, this instruction should be provided in the least restrictive environment.

Rule #2: Provide Needed Aids and Services

Some students with disabilities may need changes to the general curriculum or to how it’s presented so they can understand the material, says Fogel. Age-specific guidelines for sex education may not work for some students with developmental or mental disabilities, she says. Also, even if students receive mainstream instruction in an early grade, many students may require additional instruction and reinforcement later, says Fogel. Some students just won’t be ready to absorb the information in a mainstream class in early middle school. Continue Reading

Sexuality and Teens with Developmental Disabilities

By Dave Hingsburger, Debra Snell VaNoort, and Susan Tough

The Sexuality Clinic at York Central Hospital in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, has seen a rapid increase in referrals for teenagers who have made sexual mistakes. Many of these teens live in homes with their families, attend local schools and participate in community events. In 1981, the first year of service delivery, the Sexuality Clinic had a referral of only one teenager. This year, almost twenty years later, a full 25% of all clinic referrals are for teenagers with developmental disabilities.

As we design approaches for working with teenagers, clinic consultants, in the heat of frustration, often make the same clinical observation: “This is just stupid stuff.” This comes from a realization that the behavior that led to the referral is often fairly typical for hormone-driven teenagers, but it also involves either bad judgment (on the part of the individual with a disability) or a panic-stricken reaction (on the part of school personnel or parents). Continue Reading

By Pamela S. Wolfe, Ph.D. and Wanda J. Blanchett, Ph.D.

Embracing our sexuality and expressing ourselves, in the manner in which we choose, is a natural and fulfilling aspect of all our lives. Thus, all of us are entitled to the right to sexual expression and access to complete and accurate information regarding human sexuality. As natural as sexuality and sexual expression are, few individuals with disabilities (especially those with significant disabilities) have been able to express their sexuality due to societal ignorance, fear, and denial of their sexuality and right to expression.

These attitudes are based, in part, on historical events pertaining to issues of sexuality as they relate to individuals with disabilities. Throughout the 1800s and the early 1900s, individuals with disabilities were often viewed as asexual beings (Blachett, Wold, & Ruhl, 2000). Consequently, their sexuality was denied altogether. Continue Reading

By Dave Hingsburger

“Sexuality. Hmmm. Well, my child requires total care, so I don’t think that I need to worry about issues related to sexuality.” Many parents of children with significant disabilities ignore the fact that their child is becoming an adult. With all the work that needs to be done to just care for their child, sexuality seems like a needless worry. While it may be true in most instances that the greater the disability, the less likely an individual will form a relationship that leads to sexual expression, even so there are two facts that parents need to keep in mind when raising a child with a significant disability. Continue Reading

By James K. McAfee and Pamela Wolfe

Background and Concepts

Webster’s New World dictionary defines consent as “to give assent or approval.” In the context of sexuality and persons with cognitive disabilities, the issue of consent is clearly intertwined with the legal issues of competence and protection from abuse and exploitation. The latter point is especially critical when we consider the fact that solicitation for prostitution is one of the most common crimes with which persons with developmental disabilities are charged and sexual abuse of persons with developmental disabilities is a pervasive social problem. The court in Gray v. Grunnagle (423 Pa 144, 1966) defined consent as “an act of reason, accompanied with deliberation, the mind weighing as in balance the good and bad on each side. It means voluntary agreement by a person in the possession and exercise of sufficient mentality to make an intelligent choice to do something proposed by another.”

Lest we view persons with disabilities only as the objects of sexual offers, sexual consent must be examined in three forms: (a) the right to say no to a request from another, (b) the right to say yes to a request from another, and (c) the right to initiate a request. The three aspects may be viewed in an educational developmental sense. First, individuals learn how to protect themselves from predatory, inappropriate or undesired advances. Second, individuals learn about entering into voluntary relationships that may have sexual elements. Finally, individuals learn how to initiate interpersonal relationships that may have sexual elements. Continue Reading

By Leigh Ann Reynolds, M.S.S.W., M.P.A., Health Promotion & Disability Prevention Specialist

What is sexual abuse?

Sexual abuse includes a wide range of sexual activities that are forced upon someone. People with mental retardation are often unable to choose to stop abuse due to a lack of understanding of what is happening during abuse, the extreme pressure to acquiesce out of fear, a need of acceptance from the abuser or having a dependent relationship with the abuser. Sexual abuse consists of sexually inappropriate and non-consensual actions, such as exposure to sexual materials (such as pornography), the use of inappropriate sexual remarks/language, not respecting the privacy (physical boundaries) of a child or individual (e.g., walking in on someone while dressing or in the bathroom), fondling, exhibitionism, oral sex, and forced sexual intercourse (rape).

How often are people with mental retardation sexually abused?

According to research, most people with disabilities will experience some form of sexual assault or abuse (Sobsey & Varnhagen, 1989). The rate of sexual victimization in the general population is alarming, yet largely goes unnoticed. At least 20 percent of females and 5 to 10 percent of males are sexually abused every year in the U.S. Although these figures are disturbingly high, people with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities are at an even greater risk of sexual victimization. Victims who have some level of intellectual impairment are at the highest risk of abuse (Sobsey & Doe, 1991). Continue Reading