Special Needs Adoption

Please find some of our best articles, essays and reviews on this topic.

For more topics and articles, check out our full listing on our Resource Library.

Special needs include mental and physical health issues, experiences of trauma, learning disabilities, and behavioral challenges. Parents who adopt children with known needs, or unanticipated ones, need tools and support to address their children’s issues and also manage the impact of these needs on everyone in the family. Read suggestions and stories from parents’ and children’s perspectives as well as professionals who work with children and families to create strategies that are effective and supportive.

If you prefer, you can use our Library Search Tool to search by title or author. All the material in this section is copyrighted by Pact; for permission to reproduce or re-post it, please contact us at education@pactadopt.org.

• "Don’t You Dare Repeat Any of This" Thoughts of Adoption By An Adoptee-By-The-Sea
  by Joyce Maguire Pavao (1997 | 328 KB | )
  
• A Different Kind of Normal
  by Joan McNamara (1998 | 339 KB | )
  
• A Father From the Beginning
  by George Harrar (2011 | 111 KB | )
  
• ADHD and African American Children
  by Willie B. Garrett (1996 | 96 KB | )
  
• Adopted Adolescents - Delayed Launching
  by Gregory Keck (2009 | 57 KB | )
  
• An Entrustment Journey
  by Fran Cooper Materra (1995 | 312 KB | )
  
• Ask Pact: Homeschooling
  by Pact (2010 | 345 KB | )
  
• Book Review: Brothers and Sisters in Adoption
  by Arleta James (2009 | 473 KB | )
  
• Book Review: Parenting Adopted Adolescents: Understanding and Appreciating Their Journeys
  by Gregory Keck (2009 | 408 KB | )
  
• Children In Transition
  by Devon Rubin (2009 | 308 KB | )
  
• Deafness and Difference
  by Marilyn May (1996 | 110 KB | )
  
• Director’s Corner: Things We Have Learned Along The Way -- Parenting a Child with Learning Disabilities Differences
  by Beth Hall (2005 | 118 KB | )
  
• Does Fost-Adoption Encourage Healthy Growth?
  By Jodee Kulp (1995 | 333 KB | )
  
• Executive Parenting Strategies that Work
  by Jim Manhoney (1995 | 341 KB | )
  
• Family Stories: Surprise Adoption
  by Jill Rege (2008 | 956 KB | )
  
• Family Stories: Surviving Foster Care - A Day with Shane Salter
  Interviewed by Roxanne Agur (1997 | 373 KB | )
  
• Family Story: Dan O’Brien - The World’s Greatest Athlete - A Transracially Adopted Hero
  Interviewed by Gail Steinberg (1997 | 390 KB | )
  
• Far Away From the Tigers: A Year in the Classroom with Internationally Adopted Children
  by Jane Katch, Reviewed by Alison Seevak (2011 | 113 KB | )
  
• Film Review: Foster Parents Speak: Crossing Bridges and Fostering Change
  by Photosythesis Productions (2009 | 469 KB | )
  
• Film Review: Wo Ai Ni Mommy
  by Michele Rabkin (2010 | 115 KB | )
  
• Forgotten Child
  by Lynn Calza (1998 | 112 KB | )
  
• In Utero Drug Exposure - The Impact on Language Development
  by Kimm E. Bolding (1995 | 120 KB | )
  
• Interpreting Regression in Children
  Adapted from Holly van Gulden (2009 | 329 KB | )
  
• Is it Private or Is it Secret? Sorting Out What to Tell Whom
  by Pat Irwin Johnston, MS (2011 | 125 KB | )
  
• Laughter, Attachment and Adopting Older Kids
  by Pat O’Brien (1996 | 340 KB | )
  
• On Being Adopted Older with "Special Needs"
  by Carol DeMuth (1997 | 349 KB | )
  
• Pact’s Perspective on Therapy and Adoption
  by Jeannie Lin in collaboration with Pact staff (2004 | 340 KB | )
  
• Prenatal Substance Exposure: What Parents Need to Know
  by Pact (2010 | 59 KB | )
  
• Prenatal Trauma and the Adoptee Experience
  by Sally Clark (1996 | 112 KB | )
  
• Proactive Parenting: How to Recognize Issues and When to Seek Help
  by Dee A. Paddock (1998 | 327 KB | )
  
• Responding to the Coded Messages of Children’s Behavior
  by Kenneth W. Watson (1996 | 330 KB | )
  
• Seeing A Child Through The Lens Of Temperament
  by Rona Renner (2010 | 144 KB | )
  
• Talking with Children about Difficult History
  by Holly van Gulden (1995 | 339 KB | )
  
• Teaching for Diversity - The Preschool Setting
  by Eliana Elias (1995 | 114 KB | )
  
• Teen Corner: Dominique’s Journey
  by Dominique Parker (2005 | 94 KB | )
  
• The Decision Makers?
  by Barbara Termitiere (1995 | 324 KB | )
  
• The Primal Wound?
  by Randolph W. Severson (1994 | 336 KB | )
  
• Who Are The Real Parents - Revisiting Extended Family as a Support System for Children in Need of Adoption or Foster Care
  by O. Virginia Phillips (1995 | 111 KB | )
  

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