Growing Up With Down Syndrome

The book Schooling Children with Down Syndrome by C. Kliewer orients readers to see the exclusion of people Down Syndrome from mainstream society as a social construct anchored on a misconstrued medicalized notion to label people living with Down Syndrome as being mentally retarded. From central theme permeating this book- the social model of disability, I draw parallels to my experience as an International student in the United States because like a person living with Down Syndrome, I struggle to attain “citizenship”. At present, my racial and political identity bothers between being an “alien” or a “squatter”.

The relationship between the two fathers and the two sons is a very important theme in this book. Because of their different backgrounds, Reb Saunders and David Malters approached raising a child from two totally different perspectives.

A person with downs syndrome has extra chromosome. The defect usually involves the twenty first chromosome. With this chromosome defect you do not develop like the average human being. With Down syndrome you have a short body stature and your face has a very broad profile, the most noticeable way to tell if someone has Down syndrome is their ears and their eyes are aligned differently than someone who doesn’t have downs syndrome. When you are growing up with Down’s syndrome your speech develops much slower and it is much harder to annunciate your words. some over time can develop great speech and some

As a child, Down syndrome was a part of my everyday life. I was watched after every day for the first ten years of my life by a women who was also looking after her sister who had Down syndrome. To me it was nothing unusual. It wasn’t until about eighth grade that I realized that to other people it wasn’t normal, it had a negative connotation. Growing up around a person who has Down syndrome made me see things differently than others. Once I realized not everyone else’s perspectives were the same as mine I became really aware of how others treated and reacted to people with Down syndrome. Its years later and I came across a story told by a women named Bethany Van Delft about Down syndrome.

The author of the book, Wes Moore, describes the different opportunities and life style he had with another person who shared the same name. The similarities that those boys had when they were younger were significant. Both boys grew up without a paternal figure and their mothers had to work extremely hard to take care of the rest of the family; they were constantly moving from city to city to ensure education and safety. Their mothers had to work excessive number of hours to cover the most basic needs. Living in poverty changed the future of the boys.

mother could have a Down Syndrome baby even though there was never any sign of

In order to fully serve all students within a classroom setting, it is helpful to consider the membership of each individual class member. The criteria used to consider a student’s membership or citizenship within a classroom community comes from the book, Schooling Children with Down Syndrome: Toward an Understanding of Possibility, written by Christopher Kliewer in 1998. “The four elements of citizenship (are): 1) a belief in one’s ability to think, 2) a belief in one’s individuality, 3) a belief in the reciprocity of the relationship, and 4) a shared social place.” (Rapp, p.129, 2012) The ultimate goal for each student is to achieve full citizenship where the contributions of each member are considered by others and the academic needs of each member are also being met. Rapp further explains Kliewer’s elements to possess a “belief that everyone is capable of thinking-thinking deeply, thinking creatively, thinking for themselves” (Rapp, p.129, 2012), “the belief that each person has unique characteristics all his or her own” (Rapp, p.130, 2012), “you believe that everyone has something to give and everyone has something to receive; everyone is a teacher and a learner” (Rapp, p.129, 2012), and “it is a place where each individual belongs and where he or she is valued and can take risks without fear or failure or persecution.” (Rapp, p.129, 2012) The common theme of Kliewer’s elements revolves around ideas of being open minded and believing that

The central character in which the story takes off upon is Mitchell Stephens. He is drawn into this case by his own anger. He has his own sense of suffering and confusion toward his own daughter. Stephens is torn by his urge to save her and his fear that he can't possibly do so. He recalls the flashback of his little girl as a toddler at a near death experience and him as her father while singing to her, held her life in his own hands prepared to perform an emergency tracheotomy. And in that way, Stephens' own experience bonds together with the nightmare of those pain stricken parents: the ultimate unbearable burden of caring for children where strength will be tested beyond its limits. Stephen's own daughter in whom he loves dearly has been taken away from him although she is not dead; she is practically gone out of his life. He is pissed off, "enough rage and helplessness, your love turns to steamy piss." (101). Stephen is set to find the cause, something or someone to blame for their misfortunes and to rage against whatever forces took their child, "I don't know if it was the Vietnam war…I don't know

Discovering you are pregnant with a child is supposed to be one of the best days of your life, but finding out your baby has the one extra 21st chromosome could change everything. Author and national correspondent for the New York Times, Amy Harmon, fights for children and families affected by the disease in her article, “Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus.” Harmon recognizes in her article that raising a child with this disease is not easy. She provides evidence of this by including quotes and personal stories from parents and family members whose loved ones are affected by it. She illustrates a genuine passion for the growing number of parents that are “Convinced that more couples would chose to continue the pregnancies if they better appreciated what it meant to raise a child with Down syndrome”(Harmon). To better put it in perspective, an estimated 90% of women chose to have an abortion if they are given a positive diagnosis for Down syndrome.

While wrongful birth does not just represent children with down syndrome it represents all kinds of birth problems children are born with. A couple won a $4.5 million in a lawsuit for wrongful birth. The parents claimed “They would have never brought their son Bryan into the world if they had known about his horrific disabilities” (Hallowell, 2011). The parents son was born with only three limbs, no arms and one leg; however, if Dr. Marie Morel and technicians at OB/GYN specialists of the Palm Beaches did properly administered two ultrasounds and seen he was missing three limbs the parents would have terminated the pregnancy (Howell, 2011). The parents “understandably upset that they had no warning about the

Children are our future; our future scientists, doctors, teachers, president and so much more. It is hard not to notice the number of young parents nowadays that have children. the average age range for mothers giving birth is 20-34. With the current up rise of babies being born to young mothers, I could not help but think about how age plays a factor into birth effects. Down syndrome is the most common single cause of human birth defects. The most common form of Down syndrome is known as trisomy 21, a genetic condition where individuals have 47 chromosomes in each cell instead of 46. Trisomy 21 is caused by an error in cell division called nondisjunction, which leaves a sperm or egg cell with an extra copy of chromosome 21 before or at conception.

The Journal of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disability compared the attitudes of parents of children with Down syndrome in 1970 to those parents today. Forty percent of parent’s today report they have been confronted with accusations that their child could have been avoided (Shiver 10). Although policies over the past thirty years have become supportive of people with Down syndrome, parents frequently receive the message from society that they have chosen wrongly to deliver a child with Down syndrome. Parents do not want to live through guilt or discrimination of society. Therefore, most parents choose to abort their child, if the NIPT is positive. If there were not prenatal testing, there would be no way to determine if the child has Down syndrome before birth and parents would not be questioned why they chose for their child to experience life. In comparison, in Race: A History beyond Black and White, Aronson states, “Physical differences matter. The color of our skin, the curl of our hair, the size of our nose or lips-these are important. How we look is not just a personal matter; it identifies of a larger group” (Aronson 3). Physical differences matter, because those with Down syndrome often portray a small nose, a small mouth, upward eye slant, and flat back of the head. In society, those without the disease are prejudiced against people with Down syndrome, even though they are capable of big accomplishments. “We, those like us, those we find beautiful, are superior. You, those unlike us, those we find alien, are inferior. And yet the idea itself is so powerful because it confirms our ancient sense that those who look different are aliens and enemies” (Aronson 127). A binary has been created in society, that those with Down syndrome are less since they have distinct characteristics. Society negatively influenced parents of those with Down syndrome,

Growing up was a brother who suffers from down syndrome was a learning experience for Wong and really opened her eyes. When she was older she gave thought to medical procedures like prenatal testing that were offered

In the first video about Down syndrome we learned about a young couple who when they had their first child, Kristen discovered that she was born with the malformation known as Down syndrome. They were very concerned for her health and struggled through the medical needs she had as an infant in relation to the Down syndrome which caused her to have 6 surgeries as a very young age. The same couple had another child who was not born with the malformation and were expecting their third child as well. Nicole, who is Kristen’s little sister actually seemed to stimulate development in Kristen, such as when Nicole started to crawl, so did Kristen. Kristen’s mom explained that while having a child with Down syndrome comes with great concerns, challenges

Due to the nature of the condition, individuals with Down syndrome face a bountiful array of difficulties with language and communication. Down syndrome occurs due to an extra copy of the twenty-first chromosome causing intellectual and developmental delays as well as abnormal physical characteristics. With the highly complex nature of human speech, these physical characteristics of individuals with Down syndrome cause many challenges in accomplishing clear and audible communication. The following paper will discuss specifically the articulation and auditory challenges that individuals with Down syndrome face during speech.