Lonely Joy: How Families with Nonverbal Children with Disabilities Communicate, Collaborate, and Resist in a World that Values Words

Drawing on ethnographic research with four families with children with profound cognitive disabilities who are nonverbal, this article argues that communication and joy among such families are undermined by common perceptions of disability as tragedy and lack of language as absence of communication....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of pastoral theology
Authors: Raffety, Erin (Author) ; Foote, Laura S. (Author) ; Harris, Emily (Author) ; Vollrath, Kevin (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2019]
In: Journal of pastoral theology
RelBib Classification:NCB Personal ethics
RG Pastoral care
ZB Sociology
Further subjects:B Disability
B Resistance
B Joy
B Families
B Communication
B nonverbal
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Drawing on ethnographic research with four families with children with profound cognitive disabilities who are nonverbal, this article argues that communication and joy among such families are undermined by common perceptions of disability as tragedy and lack of language as absence of communication. Because the Church often perpetuates understandings of disability as tragedy, joy in such families must stand in resistance to not just ableist society, but also to the Church. Therefore, we argue that both such families and the Church remain ‘lonely' in their joy. Accordingly, we charge the Church to receive and accept a broad variety of communication in order to embrace, come alongside, and magnify the joy of families with persons with disabilities who are nonverbal, enlarging the context of joy in Christian community.
ISSN:2161-4504
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of pastoral theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/10649867.2019.1621024