The Adult Down Syndrome Center, located in suburban Chicago, is a primary health care service specifically serving the needs of adults (and now teens) with Down syndrome. This week it celebrates its 25th anniversary. During that time its reach has been far beyond a local health care facility - valuable as that is.
The experience and insight of the staff, patients and families has provided much information to people with Down syndrome and those who care for them across the world, through teaching, books and other publications, presentations at local and international conferences, research and social media. The benefit of the knowledge built up from caring for 6000+ people with Down syndrome has benefitted many thousands more. We congratulate all of those who created and have grown the ADSC, along with our very grateful thanks for your work and generosity in sharing it so readily for 25 years.
Dr Brian Chicoine, physician and co-director of the Center, has been there since the very first day, and has looked back over the Center's history this week
Blog: What I have learned from persons with Down syndromeDr. Brian Chicoine, Adult Down Syndrome Center, 17 January 2017
... A few years before the Center opened, Robert Fulghum wrote “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” I have often thought that I should write a companion book, “All I Need to Know Can Be Learned from People with Down Syndrome.” In it, I would describe some of the many lessons that I have learned ...
David M. Perry, Pacific Standard, 13 January 2017
My non-verbal son’s reactions to stories and films tell me he’s ‘competent’ in ways he can’t yet express — and I can’t yet fully understand ...
... We try always to “presume competence.” This phrase, popular in the intellectual and developmental disability community, commands us to engage with disabled individuals under the presumption that they understand, that they are communicating in ways that work for them, that they are competent people. It’s definitely one of my watchwords in terms of my goals as a parent, but it’s often hard to achieve in practice. Sometimes, I really do want to know what he’s thinking ...
Festival features films about, created by individuals with Down syndrome
Festival features films about, created by individuals with Down syndrome
Jessica Anderson, Baltimore Sun, 15 January 2016
After Ethan Saylor's death in 2013, many families in the Down syndrome community say they tended to avoid movie theaters, but a film festival opening in Annapolis this weekend aims to change that ...... Holland said she hopes the event will draw others from outside the community and show how capable those with Down syndrome are when given the chance.
"It was born out of tragedy, but it's really a story about how change can happen," she said ...
Dave Hingsburger, Of Battered Aspect, 13 January 2017
People thought him funny. And because they thought him funny, they laughed at him. All he had tried to do was to be assertive and stand his ground. In fact, he had done that, but in doing so he made himself ridiculous in the eyes of pretty much everyone around ... I worry more and more and more about the theft of the voices of people with intellectual disabilities by those who, while they have good motives, take what's not theirs ...
People thought him funny. And because they thought him funny, they laughed at him. All he had tried to do was to be assertive and stand his ground. In fact, he had done that, but in doing so he made himself ridiculous in the eyes of pretty much everyone around ... I worry more and more and more about the theft of the voices of people with intellectual disabilities by those who, while they have good motives, take what's not theirs ...
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