Emotional Development and Intellectual Disability

This important book recognises the complexity and importance of emotions and emotional development in the needs and lives of people with intellectual disabilities (learning disabilities), and in their care and support. Combining research, assessment, and practice, and bringing together a team of experts and advisers in the field, enables exploration of this complex topic from a number of positive perspectives, including emotional development as an adaptive behaviour, as a support need, and as a quality of life domain. With insights into the intertwined connection between the emotions and the brain, the book systematically sets out theoretical frameworks, themes of emotional development, diagnostics, and support, before considering whether it is possible to provide an integrative model as a basis for theory, everyday practice, and research. It is a book that is relevant to everyone working in the field of intellectual disability as a key reference for practice, education, policy-making, and research.

Jac de Bruijn is an independent consultant for healthcare and society (www.youcare.site) with more than 30 years of experience in healthcare, especially for people with a disability. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of Stichting Prisma and was previously head of treatment and mental health psychologist. He worked as a lecturer at the Erasmus Medical Center, to which he is now affiliated as a guest lecturer. He published several books together with others and is specialised in methods and interventions for people with intellectual disability. He is passionate about inclusion. Jolanda Vonk studied educational science at the Free University of Amsterdam (VU, cum laude). She works as a senior behavioral scientist at ORO/Lore in the Netherlands. She is working in the field of people with ID for more than 30 years as a healthcare psychologist, remedial educationalist, sexologist, supervisor, and coach. Jolanda also works as a consultant for the Centre of Expertise and Consultation (CCE), a national organization in the Netherlands that is deployed on demand for complex problems of people with intellectual disability or mental health problems. Ad van den Broek worked as a healthcare psychologist in the care of people with intellectual disabilities. Today he works at FORTIOR, which he founded in 2006 and for which he is now responsible together with Catja van den Broek. His interest is mainly in the emotional and personality development in the context of the developmental dynamic model and in methods in the field of relationship, contact communication, and support. Brian Twint studied social work at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and after a period in youth services has been working for years as a personal supervisor and project leader in the field of intellectual disability. Twint is the original designer of the ‘Affectief Bewuste Benadering’ (Affective Conscious Approach), initiator of the Expertise Centre Intellectual Disability in the Netherlands, and author of several books about and for people with intellectual disabilities.