ABSTRACT
To understand the ecology of parenting children with disabilities, one must first appreciate certain societal changes. Since the 1970s, changes have arisen in most Western societies in the conceptualization of disabilities, in the nature and amount of services offered to children and their families, and in the roles that adults with disabilities play in the society at large. So, too, have major advances occurred in various sciences associated with disabilities; we now know much more about the causes and consequences of many disability conditions.
