Taking Care of Adults with Disabilities

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Pearlie Hatcher calls her son, Jeffrey, “Mama’s baby.”
Jeffrey replies that he is a man. Physically, he is 45, and the gray hair creeping around his temples and the lines around his merry eyes show it.

Developmentally, he is a child. He always has been. He always will be. The Hatcher family learned when their youngest was an infant that he had Down syndrome.
The way Pearlie explained it to his siblings, he would “always be like a baby.”