Changes across the lifespan: personal relationships, marriage and family life

This chapter outlines in depth the particular challenges of people with intellectual disabilities and their families may encounter across the lifespan. The impact of screening and diagnosis is explored, along with challenges encountered with going to school, and the attendant issues of transition/s and how this is managed. Also explored is the move from adolescence to adulthood that presents people with the possibility of relationships, marriage, and families. The chapter reviews the course towards, and the inevitability of, growing older and its impact on people with intellectual disabilities, especially those with Down syndrome, and the ultimate stage of life—passing/dying—and the importance of managing this well for people with intellectual disabilities.