15 Celebs Who’ve Shared What It’s Like to Raise a Special Needs Child

The Grey’s Anatomy star’s 4-year-old daughter, Pippa, has Down syndrome, which scared Caterina upon first learning about it. But now she advocates for people to better understand what raising a child with the genetic disorder is like.

“All I knew about Down syndrome was that people were afraid of it, so I figured I should be too,” Caterina told People. But as Pippa got older, the actress realized that it wasn’t anything to be fearful about. “There is no standard, objective, perfect human being. The metrics of perfection are arbitrary and imposed in the service of those who fit them. My daughter is perfect. Exactly the way she is,” Caterina said.

In 1995, Gary Cole’s daughter, Mary, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. In 2009, the Office Space star gave an interview encouraging fellow parents of children with ASD to seek out information to help them and their kid. He also reminded parents that they’re not alone.

“It seems you can ask any friend, any relative, and they’ll be able to tell you about someone they know with autism. Or direct you to a good doctor who can help,” he said. “Seek answers, and the earlier the better.”

Colin’s oldest son, James, lives with Angelman syndrome, which can cause developmental delays, lack of speech, and more. The Irish actor told Today.com that he keenly understands the unique challenges of raising a child with special needs. “The struggles of a child with special needs can be so brutal that they can tear at the very fabric of your heart, but the love shared and the pure strength and heroism observed is the needle and thread that mends all tears,” he said, adding that no one is alone in their experience.

“One thing I would say is reach out,” he said. “Find support. Only you will ever know truly what it is to feel what you feel, but you will recognize yourself in the struggles and triumphs of others when you hear their stories.”

Kelly Preston and John Travolta’s son Jett had autism spectrum disorder and tragically died at 16 after a seizure. The couple only revealed his autism diagnosis after his 2009 death, and they gradually talked about it more over the years. In 2019, Kelly (who sadly lost her own battle to breast cancer in July 2020) shared a photo of her son, along with a sweet caption.

“To my sweet love, Jett. You are in our hearts forever. I send love to all of the beautiful autistic children and the wonderful people who love them. May we all shine and grant love and respect to children with special needs,” she wrote.

In 2006, Victoria Beckham revealed that her son Romeo has epilepsy. She was forced to talk about it when the paparazzi’s flashing cameras posed a seizure threat. “He’s got epilepsy,” she told the photographers. “All that flashing will start an epileptic fit. You can’t do that.” Hopefully, they respected that.

Celebrity Big Brother alum Katie Price recently moved her 18-year-old son, Harvey, into a full-time care facility, according to Us Weekly. The teenager is partially blind and has Prader-Willis syndrome, which can cause slow development. He’s also been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

“It’s so upsetting to think I won’t see him every day, but this is the best thing for Harvey, and we have to think positively because I don’t want him to think I’m just getting rid of him,” Price said of the heart-wrenching decision to move him into the facility. “This is his chance to live an independent life, learn skills, and socialize with people other than me. I’m trying to get him used to me not being there all the time. But he’ll call on his iPad and say, ‘Mum, I need you,’ and I run to him.”

In 1985, Sylvester talked to People about his son Seargeoh’s struggles with autism spectrum disorder. “There is no real father-and-son thing there. With a child like this, you have to put away your ego. You can’t force him into your world,” the actor said. “I sort of go along with whatever he is doing. Sometimes he likes to draw, mostly abstract things, and he has puzzles that we work on together.”

John C. McGinley, who you probably know from Scrubs, has a son with Down syndrome. He opened up about parenting Max to Ability Magazine in 2011. “Max’s biggest challenge is his lack of spoken language,” John said. “Max sometimes gets frustrated in his inability to communicate verbally, so he uses gestures and sometimes an inappropriate amount of physicality to communicate. We still need to be vigilant and not overburden him as he charts his course through a nonverbal landscape.”

Heroes and Felicity star Greg Grunberg’s son Jake has epilepsy, which at one point was so bad that Jake was having up to 200 seizures a day. He has since undergone brain surgery that helped stabilize him a bit more, but Greg remains an active voice in the epilepsy space. He even founded TalkAboutIt.org, which functions as a resource for people dealing with epilepsy or caring for someone with the disorder.

“Talking about it is what we need to do,” Greg said on the TV show The Doctors. “The more we talk about it, you remove the stigma.”

The NCIS actress’s son Mason was born with cerebral palsy, and Laura had to learn quickly how to navigate his special needs. Now she advocates for people not to see a disability as limiting. “Disability is natural,” she told Oprah Winfrey. “It always has been. It always will be. It’s part of the world, and it’s part of life.”

She added, “We don’t have a really constructive or positive view of disability really around the world. ‘Look, this is the greatest gift you’re going to be given. This is the chance for you to become smarter and more inventive than you ever thought you would be.'”

When Holly talks about autism spectrum disorder, she prioritizes speaking about it in relation to race. “Quite often in the African-American community, we do tend to shy away from these issues. We tend not to talk about autism or special needs or mental health, but we have to really move past that,” she told Essence. “Some of our kids get diagnosed sometimes two to five years later than in other communities, and that’s not OK.”

She is a big advocate for people with ASD, and she now does some of the advocacy work with her 22-year-old son RJ, who was diagnosed when he was younger.

Holly’s husband, Rodney Peete, also spoke about his son’s autism spectrum disorder back in 2010 to NPR. “Each parent needs to treat their child as an individual and really come down to their level — and really not put the pressure on our children to be what we want them to be,” he said. “The sooner we understand who our child is and what he wants to do, the better.”

The singer has two sons with cerebral palsy, and he spoke about that to Rolling Stone in 1988. “Cerebral palsy is a condition of life, not a disease. It’s the way he is, the condition he’s in,” Neil said of his son Ben specifically. “He was brought into the world in this form, and this is the way he is. A lot of the things that we take for granted, that we can do, he can’t do. But his soul is there, and I’m sure that he has an outlook on the world that we don’t have because of the disabilities.”

Ed’s son Charlie was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and his grandson lives with the disorder as well. Because of his personal experiences, the Mary Tyler Moore Show star became an advocate for people with ASD. He told the Tennessean that the most important lesson he’s learned from raising his son is, “Patience. Patience. Patience. Always patience. I can’t employ it enough.”

Whenever he was picking acting jobs, Criminal Minds star Joe Mantegna thought of his family first. His daughter Mia has autism spectrum disorder, and he didn’t want to leave her behind for the long stretches of filming on location. He told Ability Magazine that he asked production to make accommodations for him and his family. “OK, we’re going to Russia for three weeks? Then [my family is] all going. ‘Really?’ the producer would ask. ‘Yeah, really. We’re all going or I’m not going. Get another actor,'” he said.