Friday, 9 September 2016

Weekend reading and viewing: 10 - 11 September 2016


Sixty years of living with Down's syndrome
Debbie Race, DSA (UK) Journal, 133, Spring/Summer 2016
I am writing about my experience of living with a sister and a son, both of whom had and has Down's syndrome ...
  • The UK DSA Jounal is published twice a year. It is a rich source of information across a range of topics of interest to familiex everywhere. A number of back issues can be downloaded from the website, here.
The half-truth of the happiness stereotype for my son with Down syndrome
Leticia Keighley, Embracing Wade, 6 September 2016... People with Down syndrome and those who know and love them, will tell you that a lot of the stereotypes do not apply and yet they persist despite that. I have come across a few since Wade was born but the most common by far is the old chestnut…“They’re always so happy!”
I hear it from well-meaning strangers almost weekly. I have perfected my nod-and-smile response mostly because I just don’t have the energy to educate every single person I run into, but also because the response is complicated. There is an element of truth to it but it’s not as cut and dry as it seems

Priscilla Frank, Huffing Post, 7 September 2016
... Like a wildly wrapped package, the sculptures seem to possess some secret or meaning that can’t be accessed, save for an energy that radiates outward; the mysterious comfort of knowing that something is truly unknowable. 

Judith and Joyce Scott were born on May 1, 1943, in Columbus, Ohio. They were fraternal twins. Judith, however, carried the extra chromosome of Down Syndrome and couldn’t communicate verbally. Only later, when Judith was in her 30s, was she properly diagnosed as deaf. “There are no words, but we need none,” Joyce wrote in her memoir 'Entwined', which tells the confounding story of her and Judith’s life together. “What we love is the comfort of sitting with our bodies near enough to touch.” ...
  • Entwined, by Joyce Wallace Scott was released 28 June 2016
Trusting your instincts
Nancy Goodfellow, (US) National Association for Down Syndrome (NADS) News, July 2016
... There are times when we need to concede to the professionals regarding our children, but there are times when we need to trust to our instincts. Lily's Social Studies placement was a good example of when I should have remembered that I am the expert when it comes to my child ...

Beth thought she had no money. But she did.
Miki Perkins, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 September 2016
... Before, when she wanted to dye her hair, go to movies, or get a massage, Beth was told she couldn't afford it, that she didn't have money, she says. But actually, she did ...
Joy Stein, New York Times, 2 September 2016
... I realized that there were other barriers to his full participation unrelated to the physical plant. The only sustained interactions between the children in the two special education classrooms and the rest of the school occurred when older students served as “buddies” to children in special education via weekly half-hour play sessions. Besides his six classmates, only one of whom he befriended, my son had no opportunities to interact with other children his age in school ...

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