In the film, “Sean’s Story”, Sean Begg is an 8 year old boy with Down Syndrome. Him and his parents had been enduring a seven year fight to have Sean placed in a regular public school. Previously, he was enrolled in a contained classroom in a school for children with disabilities. Throughout the film, audiences are able to observe the controversial experiences Sean and his family withstood as well as compare his new life in a general education classroom to his former life in a special education classroom. Analyzing various aspects of communication, collaboration, and Sean’s improvements by the end of his first public school year allow viewers to critique the educational decisions made in Sean’s life.…
Many times when we were younger we would see another person who had some type of special needs like autism or down syndrome and thought it was weird. As we got older we realized that it was not weird but it was different than what we are use to. When you are walking around town you see most people with two arm and two legs. They walk, talk and act correctly and only dependent on themselves.…
Misunderstood Minds gives us a glimpse of only a few of the millions of students in the world who may be suffering from serious learning difficulties. The challenge here lies in not only being able to distinguish and identify these disabilities, but also being able to treat them immediately with the help of some experts. At times, some parents or teachers wonder why one of their students tend to exhibit “laziness” or maybe at times they just seem to be “stupid” or even the individual himself struggles in understanding why he tends to behave as such—we fail to realize that these are actually manifestations of a certain kind of learning disability. One of the students in the documentary is Nathan Vanhoy, a young energetic, playful boy, who was…
I think you have seen them before. That little kid bound to a wheelchair because he has a disability that paralyzed his legs. He will never walk. That old man who still lives with his mother, who has a brain deficiency. And that lady who walks around town just watching talking in gibberish and never changing.…
Each year, about 6,000 babies are born with Down Syndrome, according to the CDC. Down Syndrome is a congenital disorder that causes intellectual impairment and physical abnormalities such as hypotonia, ligamentous laxity, and decreased strength which prevent children with Down Syndrome from developing motor skills at the same level as children without the disorder. The Children’s TherAplay Foundation provides therapy for children with disorders such as this. An employee from this foundation wrote a success story named “Meet Leo” about a young boy with Down Syndrome. Although the author used some logos to convince the audience of parents with special needs children that the therapies Children’s TherAplay provides work, the most important appeal was the author’s use of pathos to connect to the audience on a more meaningful level in an attempt to convince the…
This one child I worked with, Jaime, had down syndrome and had quite the passion for the arts. Jaime was probably the most excited child that I worked with during the event. Another child, Aaron, loved to talk. Aaron told such colorful stories while at the table; stories ranging from the time he dropped his dad's car keys in the toilet to the time he saw a squirrel…
Morgan Freeman once said, “Attacking people with disabilities is the lowest power I can think of .” Everyone is unique and has their own differences. One difference in some people is a disability. A disability is a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities. People think that those who have disabilities are dumb and deaf.…
As unfortunate as it may be, millions of people in our country are treated as disadvantaged when they are born with or became diagnosed with a special condition. Some are treated worse than others, based on how serious it may be. Everyone is seen differently based on their appearances and the way that their mind works. What other people think about them may change the way they think about themselves and what their limits are. Based on many factors, some people are judged more frequently and more harshly than others.…
There are a lot of people who have experienced what it is like to live with someone who has a disability. Being around someone who has a disability makes a person realize some of their behavior patterns or how they can communicate in other ways. Some people may face everyday obstacles and struggle when someone they know has a disability. Down syndrome and autism are two types of disabilities that are becoming more and more common in today’s society. There have been test done that says, “… children with Down syndrome may be at increased risk of having an autism spectrum disorder” (Hepburn).…
I. Summary I read the NYT articles called: DNA and Mutations, Down syndrome, and Ethics Questions Arise as Genetic Testing of Embryos Increases. To summarize all of the readings, I believe it would be essential to start with the DNA and Mutations article. In the article DNA and Mutations, scientists have found two different genetic occurrences in multiple individuals bodies called, mosaicism and chimerism. Chimerism involves a single organism who contains genetically distinct cells, which most likely come from a twin or a parent/ fetus.…
In modern American society, both inside and outside the workplace, people who show visible signs of any form of handicap are frequently discriminated against for mostly, if not specifically, that reason. With 19% of the population of total citizens in the United States of America, disabled Americans make up a sizable amount of adults that are living in the same conditions as average, able-bodied Americans (Nearly 1 in 5 People Have a Disability in the U.S., Census Bureau Reports). The prejudice against the disabled for nothing more than their handicap is commonly referred to as ableism; indeed, even with such a large amount of the population on their side, the disabled have not yet reached equality in comparison to the able-bodied. Though…
Based on what I read in the “Far From the Tree” there are many similarities and differences that can be drawn from the experiences of deaf, dwarf, and down syndrome kids. Starting with similarities, all 3 categories of kids are in a way separated from the rest of the kids which society labels “normal”. For instance, each of the 3 categories of disabled kids are separated in the school system in an effort to supply them with the supplementation they need in order to develop in an adult. For example, in the case of deaf students, children have their own separate schools which can foster a healthy education but by the end of the 20th century more than a third had closed and 80% of kids ended up going to public high schools with less enabling tools to help those deaf children. Kids with down syndrome are in a similar boat with minimal “private” schooling options for those disabled with their condition and kids are often forced to attend public schools with less tools to help them than a private institution.…
Introduction The controversies over ableism are an ongoing topic that our society must continually address in order to meet the needs of all people. Ableism is defined as discrimination or acts of prejudices against specific groups or individuals with disabilities (Adams, etl. 2013, pg. 297). This encompasses any person who experiences oppression due to any physical, intellectual, mental, or emotional disorder they possess (Levy, 2015).…
If one was to think about an average public place, such as the grocery store, and they happened to encounter someone in a wheelchair, what would they do? This is a common predicament considering the “56 million Americans with disabilities” encountered by ordinary people every day (Muehe qtd in “What Disability Means”). Let’s say one of those ordinary people tried to help the person in a wheelchair; would it be a selfless act of kindness, or would it be the moral obligation to aid someone seen as lesser or incapable? People with various physical, mental, or behavioral special needs or disabilities are judged simply based on one aspect of their identity. Whether their disability is obvious, plays a large role in their life, or none of the above,…
Person First Language Reflection 1. What concepts did you find interesting or important from this article? I think the most important message that the article brings out is we need to treat the people who have disabilities as people like everyone first, but not as their medical diagnoses. They are the unique individual, they are a group of people that use their bodies in difference way, and they share the same rights as everybody. As people who don’t have disabilities, we shouldn’t use any words that contain with negative perception and stereotypes to describe the people who have disabilities.…