What is Known About Adult Siblings of People with IDD?
What is Known About Adult Siblings of People with IDD?
Content Overview:
In this webinar, we describe what is known about adult siblings of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). As individuals with IDD live longer and begin to outlive their parents, siblings take on greater supportive roles. To date, the field of adult siblings has informed us about four main issues: (1) problems and advantages to being a sibling of an adult with IDD; (2) life choices of these siblings (occupation, marriage, childbirth, other); (3) relationships between siblings with and without IDD; and (4) sibling caregiving and anticipated caregiving. Recent studies have extended these findings to the ways in which siblings advocate with and for their brothers and sisters with IDD (i.e.,“case advocacy”), as well as for more general changes in service systems themselves (“cause advocacy”). For each area, we describe the state of the art, point out study gaps and limitations, and identify under-researched people (“siblings-in-law”; males who are sibling caregivers) and topics (job-crafting; other life choices). Studies of adult siblings of persons with IDD promise to have increasing policy implications in the years ahead.
Presenters:
Robert Hodapp, PhD, Vanderbilt University
Meghan Burke, PhD, BCBA-D, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Katie Keiling Arnold, MS, University of Illinois at Chicago
This webinar is jointly sponsored by AAIDD and the Sibling Leadership Network.