People with Developmental Disability

This is part three in the series
 The Task of Their Grief Process


People often try to protect individuals with developmental disabilities from harsh realities of life and death, for fear that they will be affected by death or loss of someone close to them, we must understand that they do not live in a vacuum but see and maybe hear what is around them. In some ways that may have been left out of a family gathering and rituals surrounding death, such as funerals, viewing of the body as well as their own grief.

As a care provider working with developmental disabled I have seen the fallout of behavior problems all this happened when a staff member died, and some of our consumers were not allowed to attend the funeral rituals, they moved into a new residence and they were disruptive behavior, it was not until this individual was asked if he wanted to visit the grave site that his behaviors began to diminished, this happened (visits to the grave) occasionally and now that he had gone through the grieving process he back to his old self.

In general individuals with developmental disabilities have fewer social support systems than people without disabilities most do not marry or have children, and have limited opportunities to develop friendships. Older adults on the other hand have experienced multiple losses over the years, such as residential transitions, losses of friends with whom they have lived with, staff turn over, and changes in job and vocational settings. If a person dies that was the primary care provider of the adult with developmental disabilities many losses may occur all at once.

Grief can become more complicated when someone experiences several losses. Individuals may not know how to deal with their losses, they may not have been around death before or had training that would enable them to understand better what occurred.
 Most individuals need some form of life long  support, especially if it was provided by the person that died, to that individual the future may appear very frightening, the death can increase fear that others in this bereaved persons life will die soon or leave.