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Una Bendicion: Religious Beliefs of Latino Families of Children with Disabilities Dr. Vivian I. Correa Professor Department of Special Education University of Florida These families clearly used faith to mediate and to support their adjustment to having children with disabilities

Dr. Correa spoke about a research project she is involved with at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that is studying 250 Latino (Mexican and Puerto Rican) parents of young children with disabilities and their beliefs about religion. Specifically, it looks at how religion and religiosity play into the families’ ability to adjust and cope with having a young child with disabilities. She defined religion as the formal or institutional idea of religion and religiosity as the more personal construct of faith. In the research they used both qualitative and quantitative analysis. There were only slight differences between the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. The findings include the following:

• 69 percent identified themselves as Catholic and the rest as a variety of different affiliations including Protestant and Adventorical Fundamentalist. Very few believed in Santeria.

• When asked how religious they were, 92 percent said somewhat or very religious. Very few were not religious at all. Mothers were a bit more religious than fathers.

• When asked how often they went to church, the majority said about once a month, and some were not going at all. Some said that they could not go for reasons that included lack of accommodations for the children with disabilities, including in providing religious education and child care.

• When they went to church it seemed to be to have time to reflect and renew their personal faith. They reported not receiving much support from the church.

• Whether or not the families went to church, they clearly used their personal faith and connection with God to mediate and support their adjustment to having children with disabilities.

• Most families said that having a child with a disability brought them closer to their religion, faith, and God.

• Religion sustains these families in their daily lives almost more than any other factor, including professional services and intervention programs. These families were quite willing to accept services, and their faith sometimes gave them more strength to seek services.

• More than half of the families believed that having a child with a disability was a sign from God. Most of this group thought it was a positive sign, e.g., a kind of blessing (bendicion) or something to help them with their personal growth, rather than a kind of punishment. Many thought that God was giving them a test to see how they would react. They accepted that test and did the best they could with it.

• Those who did not think God had anything to do with the disability said they thought it was caused just by biological reasons and chance.

Dr. Correa concluded that people who work with these Latino families may need to be open to exploring the role of religion in these families’ lives. They should begin by exploring their own religious beliefs and biases and assumptions about religion. They also need to be accepting of these families’ use of artifacts, such as Santos (replicas of Saints), and going to revivals as a part of their faith. It would also be helpful for them to make links with the relevant religious organizations.

BIOGRAPHY

Vivian I. Correa is a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Florida. Dr. Correa received her Ph.D. in Early Childhood Special Education from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1982. She was an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University from 1982 to 1985 and has been at the University of Florida since 1985. In 2000-2001, Dr. Correa served a one-year term as the Matthew J. Guglielmo Endowed Chair at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Correa’s areas of expertise are in early intervention, multicultural education, collaboration and teaming, and working with families. She has extensive publications in these areas. She currently teaches in the Unified Early Childhood teacher education program and offers doctoral seminars in early intervention, family involvement, and grant writing.

In addition to these activities, Dr. Correa has had extensive experience as a program administrator and Principal Investigator (or co-investigator) on 14 federally funded personnel preparation projects over the last 12 years totaling over $5 million. Three of the funded projects have been in the area of bilingual special education. She is currently Principal Investigator on an OSEP leadership grant, preparing doctoral level students in special education and school psychology. These projects also have required Dr. Correa to work closely with professionals in the community, professionals in other colleges and disciplines, and faculty at other state universities.

Dr. Correa is a native Puerto Rican, and has done extensive work with culturally diverse children and their families. She was co-Project Director with Dr. Don Bailey (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill) on a NICHD research grant to study Latino families of children within Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Massachusetts. She has presented at both national and international conferences on the topic of working with students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and has presented workshops in Spanish to teachers in Chile, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.