Mindfulness and Disability

We begin this chapter with a brief look at the behavioural and psychological issues encountered by people living with developmental disabilities (DD). We follow this with a systematic review of mindfulness interventions for people living with DD, with a particular focus on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID), to establish what has already been accomplished in the application of mindfulness to this population and identify the strengths of current interventions along with the areas of possible improvement. The review covers the objectives, content, method and outcomes of these interventions, with particular attention to the ways in which mindfulness has been taught and practised. The findings of this review show what happens to individuals with DD when they practise mindfulness and what happens to individuals with DD when their family and professional care providers practise mindfulness. Finally, we compare mindfulness interventions with those that address similar behavioural and psychological issues without using mindfulness, in an attempt to establish what gives mindfulness interventions their distinctive character.