ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we begin to look at how the theories and ideas around child emotional development have been adapted. There will be an overview of some of the key ideas of Winnicott’s work, which perhaps have had the most fundamental influence on my thinking in the work with people with learning disabilities. My development of the trauma-informed care (TIC) model recognises that the delicate process of emotional development may be impacted upon in children with disabilities, due to their very disability. This can have fundamental, lifelong effects on a person’s functioning which leads to them experiencing “compounded” difficulties over and above the original disability they were born with.
