ABSTRACT
As Gross (1996) notes:
This is the age of parent power. Like it or not, gone are the days when parents expected professionals in school to do their job without asking too much about how they did it or what it was reasonable to expect from the system. Now, in education as in other areas, parents are expected to act as consumers exercising choice and evaluating the product.
For the majority of parents of a child with Down’s Syndrome, fighting the system has become a way of life by the time the child reaches school age. Increasingly, parents of children with Down’s Syndrome are seeking a mainstream placement for their children as this is seen as the most effective means by which they can be accepted into the local community. Yet experience suggests that the majority of professionals in Health, Education and Social Services still see the child’s disability first and the child second. Although few families have any difficulty in accessing specialist services, they are, almost invariably, left to explore mainstream options on their own with neither encouragement nor practical help.