(This post is Part 2. Read Part 1: Can Kids with Disabilities HAVE friends?)

Many academic journals and therapists suggest that since poor social functioning is the primary impediment to social connections for youth with developmental disabilities, then the youth with developmental disabilities should ...

I had the pleasure of speaking with Lynne Ford of Mid-morning, a radio show in Indianapolis, yesterday about the themes that come up in A Good and Perfect Gift. She asked wonderful questions about our experience with Penny, about language and Down syndrome, about sin and grief and joy, about parents ...

I usually visit Matt during his lunch break in a busy school cafeteria where he sits alone at one end of a long table, clusters of students buzzing with interaction and conversation surrounding him. When I see him at one of our ministry's events or at his house he is confident, witty and at ease. ...

One of my earliest fears for Penny, and consequently one of my earliest prayers, had to do with her ability to make friends. My fear has softened over the years. There are the buds of friendship she's growing in kindergarten. There is the ongoing friendship with William. And there are the stories I ...

Penny and William and I were reading Thomas the Train a while back, and Thomas faced a conundrum. He desperately wanted to get back to the station so he could be the train to take a group of children home from a school trip. But as he chugged along he noticed a bus that had broken down. Should he hurry ...

Brokenness and limitations are not the same thing.

Brokenness, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, is not good. It comes as a result of sin in our world. As Jesus demonstrated throughout his ministry, God wants to heal broken bodies, broken minds, broken souls, and broken communities. God wants ...

Mother's Day is coming up. And a friend recently suggested I offer a shameless plug for A Good and Perfect Gift as a perfect (pun somewhat intended) Mother's Day gift. I do hope you'll consider buying it for your mother, or for your friends who are mothers, or for your friends who one day hope to be ...

Last week, I had the privilege of sharing some thoughts on the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-11, during chapel at Western Theological Seminary. Here is an edited version of what I said:

If we were to come up with a parallel list of "Beatitudes" within American culture today, they'd sound quite different. Blessed ...

I've had the honor of trading a few emails with Aaron Cobb recently. He shared with me the eulogy he wrote for his son Samuel, who was born with Trisomy 18. It is a testimony to the goodness and beauty of life and love:

Friends and family: Thank you for sharing this day with us. 

I stand before you ...

Beautiful post by Mama Monk about the perpetual trials of being a parent of small children. She writes,

I'm a stressed mom. I'm stressed too often. I worry that August's most prominent memory of his childhood will be my contorted anxiety face leaning over his carseat, snapping at him and plugging his ...

I tend to balk at generalized statements about kids and adults with Down syndrome. There's a part of me that resists on theoretical grounds–I don't want to stereotype or treat people with Trisomy 21 as if they are in a separate category of human being. But there is also a part of me that resists on ...

I had a wonderful time in North Carolina last week, and I hope I'll take the time to write a series of posts based on the questions and conversations I had with people from the Duke Center for Reconciliation, Reality Ministries, the Trinity School, and at the Church of the Apostles. There were questions ...

Louise Kinross' take on "after-birth abortion: "I Say Gobbledygook!"

The Brain on Love, a fascinating account from the NY Times Opinionater blog about how love physically changes us. My favorite paragraph:

When two people become a couple, the brain extends its idea of self to include the other; instead ...

We were in the San Juan airport on our way to four days of vacation (just Peter and me!) when I received an email that read, "A Good and Perfect Gift wins Christopher Award!" At first I didn't believe it. But I kept reading, and I realized it was real. It was a wonderful way to start a vacation.

According ...

When our daughter Penny was a baby, I took her into Panera Bread at lunchtime. One of the women who worked there approached me. She said, "I love looking at your baby." Penny has Down syndrome, and I'm never sure what to make of a comment about her appearance. But the woman went on to say, "I have a ...

Two hours after our daughter was born, she was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The pronouncement shocked and saddened me, but I also felt confused. I thought all people with Down syndrome looked the same: Flat nose. Thick neck. Epicanthal fold of skin around the eyes. Short stature. Cherubic expression. ...

I'm sure some of you have skimmed the comments over on the Huffington Post from last week's article about Down syndrome and wrongful birth. But for those of you who haven't, here are some of the best and worst, and one of my responses. (I should add that my response here is very matter-of-fact. I wrote ...

Over the course of the past five years, I've read news reports of a series of "wrongful birth" lawsuits in which parents won millions of dollars for the ongoing care of their children. In each case, the parents claimed they would have had an abortion if they had known ahead of time about their child's ...

There were no trumpet fanfares to mark the occasion or festoon of flowers dropping from the ceiling. Nobody took a picture so that we could one day look back and fawn over the day. And had you witnessed the event you would have thought nothing of the introduction between us. It was the simplest and ...

When Sarah Palin first accepted the vice presidential nomination in 2008, I thought I should be excited that a fellow mother of a child with Down syndrome might sit in the White House. But my response to her candidacy was mixed at best. Long before she became a polarizing figure on the national scene, ...