Glossary of Special Needs Adoption-Related Terms "T-Z"

by Anna Glendenning | More from this Blogger

31 Oct 2006 04:03 AM

Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms: Adoption terms and special needs words may vary from agency to agency.The terms used in this Special Needs Adoption-Related Glossary may be slightly different from one State to another.

A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-Z

T

• Termination of Parental Rights (TPR): The legal process which involuntarily severs a parent's rights to a child.

  Related TPR Blogs: The Case File

• Therapeutic foster home: A foster home in which the foster parents have received special training to care for a wide variety of children and adolescents, usually those with significant emotional or behavioral problems. Parents in therapeutic foster homes are more closely supervised and assisted more than parents in regular foster homes.
• Tourette's syndrome: A treatable neurological disorder that consists of involuntary "tic" movements or vocalizations that become more apparent under stress. Common manifestations include shoulder-shrugging, neck-jerking, facial twitches, coughing, grunting, throat clearing, sniffing, snorting, and barking. Children with Tourette's often have problems with hyperactivity as well.
• Traditional adoption: Most often used to refer to a domestic infant adoption in which confidentiality is preserved. Equivalent to a closed adoption.
• Treatment Foster Home: A foster home in which the foster parents are trained to offer treatment to children with moderate to severe emotional problems; also known as therapeutic foster home.

V

• Voluntary adoption registry: A reunion registry system which allows adopted people, birthparents, and biological siblings to locate each other if they wish by maintaining a voluntary list of adopted people and birth relatives

W

• Waiting children: Children in the public child welfare system who cannot return to their birth homes and need permanent, loving families to help them grow up safe and secure.

  Related Waiting Children Blogs: The State Is Interested in Finding Families for Children Legally Free for Adoption or Legal Risk Placements Matching and Placement Decision November is National Adoption Awareness Month

For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.

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Learn more about Anna Glendenning

Anna Glendenning is a mother of four. Two biological children grown and out of college, and two siblings and adopted together in 2003.

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