Developmental Disabilities in Church Communities
The most rewarding experiences for any Christian parent, Sunday school teacher, or youth leader happen in the moments they catch a glimpse of a young person’s spiritual growth. Unfortunately, when working with developmentally disabled children and young people, we often fail to recognize and appropriately aid in this process.
This is an understandable challenge. It’s rare for children, youth or adult ministers to have significant exposure to disabled people, and it’s even less common for them to be familiar with teaching strategies that could help them grow in their own faith. With a growing disabled population in the U.S. (the size of a combined population of Florida and California as of 2011), however, there is an increasing need for church leaders to develop skills in this area.
Creating Opportunities for Growth
Many children with a high capacity for learning lose out on religious education experiences. For example, behavioral challenges associated with a diagnosis like ADHD or autism, which may require a higher level of personal attention, can deter social acceptance, let alone ongoing success in the average Sunday morning or Vacation Bible School setting. The good news is that fostering spiritual growth for children with developmental differences is both easier than most people realize and one of the most gratifying life experiences offered inside a church.
Understand the Individual
Tonya Langdon, Special Needs Facilitator for Skyline Wesleyan Church (Rancho San Diego, CA) underscores the need for educating the ministry team in order to create an environment of patience and love: “Well meaning church programming volunteers often see a child with one of a number of diagnoses emerge into a perceived behavior problem. An adversarial relationship can easily develop between the teachers and the child where there is a lack of understanding for the neurological drivers fueling the odd or even defiant behavior.”
Langdon goes on to explain that when the ministry team allows the child to operate on their own terms and feel like they are “winning,” the dynamics often change dramatically: “Children with special needs tire of being forced to conform. Already difficult behavior is more likely to intensify when the child is given further reason to rebel. Instead, when we pick our battles carefully, allowing the child to make non-disruptive choices, we often see the individual warm to our volunteers and actually want to engage constructively.” Skyline Wesleyan Church places special emphasis in teacher training on understanding each child, even providing a manual with information on common developmental disability diagnoses. Skyline currently hosts thirty-five children with various disabilities in multiple settings across the church’s children’s programming, giving this community an unusually deep understanding of what successful inclusion and program adaptation can look like.
Counterintuitive Solutions
Langdon shares the story of how the Skyline children’s ministry turned a challenging and negative experience for one child and her teachers into a tolerable and even thriving education environment. The elementary-age student, who we will call Taylor (name changed), reacted strongly to most direction inside the Sunday morning classroom. Taylor’s diagnoses were never formally disclosed to the staff, though many made inferences based on their familiarity with conditions like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and some mental health disorders. Regardless of the underlying diagnoses, the result was that annoying behaviors quickly escalated to unacceptable conduct, consistently wearing down the volunteer team and disrupting the other children’s learning experiences.
Langdon was called in to observe and develop a course of action. “I had a sense that Taylor needed respect. While she was demanding it an unacceptable and unconstructive fashion, the fact remained that she was trying to communicate her needs and desires to her leaders.” Langdon began shadowing Taylor, taking responsibility for her during church programming. Langdon largely ignored Taylor, giving the child the impression that her independence was allowed and that her negative behavior wasn’t worthy of additional attention. While Langdon’s approach seemed counterintuitive, giving the appearance of indifference actually worked in her favor by gaining a more compliant attitude from Taylor. It wasn’t long before Taylor’s disruption toned down to the point that remaining in the class was no longer an issue.
The Child’s Need for Respect
The beauty of this story is that by acknowledging Taylor’s need for respect and successfully managing her otherwise challenging behavior, Taylor was enabled to spiritually develop during her time in church programming.
After working one-on-one with Taylor for several weeks, Langdon discovered the young girl had a penchant for chewing gum. One Sunday morning, Langdon placed a piece of gum on the edge of a table, nonchalantly mentioning that it was a reward available to Taylor if she successfully participated in the day’s Bible instruction. To Langdon’s relief, it wasn’t long before Taylor indicated her desire to attempt the scripture memory exercise. With devoted assistance, Taylor began mastering the weekly assignments. [Editor’s Note: It is important that leaders not institute reward-based compliance strategies without consultation with the family.]
In the meantime, Langdon developed a nonverbal code for communicating with Taylor. “She doesn’t self-regulate well. So she needs visual cues signaling her actions are moving in an unhealthy or disruptive direction,” Langdon explains of Taylor’s inability to control impulses and her need for guidance. Indeed, Taylor responded well to the hand gestures Langdon developed for what otherwise would have been an embarrassing public rebuke.
Through the sometimes painful process, Taylor’s teachers also learned how to help Taylor experience success in the church setting. While every staff member and volunteer would agree that Taylor’s requirement for personal attention and supervision has been draining, her improvement is worth celebrating. When Taylor reached the fourth grade, she completed a significant portion of the education curriculum offered by the church. Langdon captured the opportunity for positive reinforcement and affirmation, creating an award for Taylor’s achievement. Langdon noted, “Sadly this was likely the first-ever positive recognition Taylor has received. Yet I’m so thankful our church has been blessed by the opportunity to provide one of the few experiences of unconditional love in this child’s life.”
Not only do all children deserve and need respect, but when working with children with developmental disabilities, acting from a place of respect can also encourage classroom leaders to operate based on the maxim “assume competence.” While we need to meet children where they are developmentally, believing that they are capable and expressing confidence in their abilities can be transformative.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on February 9, 2011. It has been revised and updated on December 12, 2023 to correct grammatical and punctuation errors, to use equitable and inclusive language in accordance with our editorial style, and to use the most widely preferred and non-stigmatizing language for disabilities to date in keeping with our style guide for discussing disability and related topics. Some recommendations may also have been modified in keeping with best practices for accessibility and inclusion.