Dr. Wolfensberger discussing citizen advocacy

Transcript: Even very enlightened parents can sometimes overlook things, aspects of competence and adult roles in their handicap children. A very prominent parent leader, very adaptive in many respects, one day was asked by a young adult friend of her young adult severely cerebral palsied son, “oh Mrs. So-and-so, how old is your son now?” He knew very well how old he was, well her son was twenty-one or something years old and he says, “why is your son not registered to vote?” Well, what happened is the twenty-first birthday in those days had come and gone and it just hadn’t rung a bell with the mother that her son was now legally of age and could have registered and voted and what have you. It took a peer, a friend, an advocate to bring that problem to attention in a competent family, in a supportive family mind you. So even a competent, supportive family may not always be enough.

From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Robert S. Wigton Department of Special Collections and Archives