Nursery World - A Unique Child: Inclusion

A project funded by the charity Scope has been assessing resilience
in disabled children and adults. Researcher Katherine Runswick-Cole
offers some insight into the process and conclusions.

Kids are resilient, aren't they?' is a well-worn phrase. Yet despite this widely held belief that most children have the ability to 'bounce back', there is also a common view that not all children are equally resilient. Looked-after children, children from migrant communities and children from single parent families are often believed to face greater threats to their resilience than other children. But what of disabled children?

To date, they have been largely ignored in resilience research, which has tended to focus on why some children, even in the face of difficult circumstances and setbacks, seem to take things in their stride, while others do not. Generally, psychologists have concluded that resilience is an individual and innate character trait. Although, they add, we only know if a child is truly resilient if they are able to overcome adversity - perhaps the death of a family pet, divorce or bereavement.

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