Pigs and Guns and Knocking out Down Syndrome

This past Monday was David's Transition Meeting with the county school system, to write his first IEP for his transition from Early Intervention to the school system when he reaches age 3, next Thursday. I have attended a number of IEP meetings as a social worker, and most of those meetings were about teenagers with behavioral issues in addition to their learning disability, and none of those meetings were as positive as this one. David's EI speech therapist and case manager were there, as well as the speech therapist, psychologist, and special educator from the school system. The special educator will take on the same kind of general role that his Community-Based Rehabilitation Specialist has had under EI - she will basically just play with him, doing some motor skills development, some speech therapy, a little bit of everything. We discussed the outcome of everyone's evaluations, and spent a lot of time on general David Admiration and Adoration.





(This is officially not something we are truly bummed out about, but it was still not our favorite thing in the world to hear, as I'm sure you'll be able to imagine): The psychologist had completed David's first comprehensive intellectual/cognitive/developmental type testing, using a number of different screening tools. He said it's not appropriate to assign an IQ score to a kid of this age and limited verbal ability, but that the overall scores he gets are kind of equivalent to an IQ scale, and he needs some concrete label to put on the paperwork so that he'll qualify for services [the whole team, Matt and I agree, did a fine job of convincing us that these labels are NOT David, and they don't think of David or any other kid in terms of all their diagnoses and challenges]. But to hear there's a 90% chance that on any given day he'll score in the 60 - 72 range was ... not uplifting. And to hear that in all these various skills areas he's performing at the 1st percentile, the 2nd percentile, the 7th, was not particularly encouraging either.

It's just one of those situations where you know something, or you think you know it, but's it a different thing altogether to hear it or see it officially, you know? We know David has Down syndrome. We are fine with that; I would even say that we love that he has it, because it's him. But it's another thing to read in a report, "David's Early Learning Composite standard score is 59 and his percentile rank is 1, which falls in the Very Low range."

You get that, right? Not too sad about it, but not great to hear for the first time either.

Thursday was World Down Syndrome Day, 3/21. Matt, David and I went to Simon's Kindergarten class to do a little information session. We started out by reading We'll Paint the Octopus Red, which I've praised at length before. We've also since gotten the sequel, The Best Worst Brother. I'd recently re-read that one to Simon; it's his favorite because in the follow-up little brother Isaac is almost 3, like David. He's still not using many words and big sister Emma gets frustrated that he's not learning more signs and words more quickly.

The night before, I'd practiced with Simon, using big Duplo blocks to explain how cells divide in the womb, for most people and then how since the beginning, and in each division, David has a little extra material (one of those single blocks), until we put all the blocks back together to make David, there's all this extra stuff. That night Simon finished by punching the stack of blocks to knock it over; he said he was "knocking out the Down syndrome so David can talk." :) The day of the presentation, we did the Lego thing (the teacher loved the demonstration; I'm not sure how well the kids followed it) and Simon admitted he'd tried to knock the Down syndrome out the night before, but this time he gave the reason that David often knocks over his Lego and block towers.

  

One of our main points in the presentation was to demonstrate that in most ways, David is just like any of their younger brothers and sisters; I think they got that 100%. It was good :). So we had a nice WDSD - the boys were all wearing their shirts from last year, I had a super-cute new pink hoodie that says "three twenty-one" across the front in cursive like on a jersey; and the NDSS logo on the sleeve. We passed out handouts with info and a Down syndrome blue/yellow butterfly sticker to take home. Yesterday (Thursday) I saw a mom of one of Simon's classmates at soccer practice; she says she has a godson in London (they just moved here from there but they're both from the US) who has Down syndrome and she sent a copy of the handout to his mom. Nice.

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There's not enough of this to justify a separate entry, I don't think. And I begin by acknowledging that yes, this is a discussion of a television show, a sitcom that is no longer on the air. But it did catch my attention:

Last week on the TV Guide channel there was a Designing Women marathon; I watched bits and pieces of several episodes mostly to laugh at the hair and clothes. In one episode, Suzanne has purchased a large pig, which viewers of the show will recall she named Noelle. Suzanne has received some threats about the pig, or believes she has, and buys a gun to protect her pig and her home from those who pose a threat. In some plot thread, Suzanne is at home alone one night; she's not answering the phone or the door because she believes more threats are coming. The rest of the women need to get in touch with her to get bail money (they get arrested for spying on amorous couples in a Lovers' Lane type place, when they were really trying to find Mary Jo's daughter, out on her first date - yes, it's a TV show, I know that). Since they can't reach her any other way, they go to her house and throw pebbles at a window, except they do it too hard, break a window, and Suzanne opens fire thinking someone is breaking into the house to harm the pig.

So they all get hauled down tot he police station and charged with various infractions. Julia ends the episode with a truly Julia-Sugarbaker-esque rant about how she can't believe Suzanne was able to buy this gun so easily, so stupidly, and how she (Julia) is going to go to Washington DC and take on the gun lobby, not be intimidated by them, and make it illegal for a person with such poor judgement as her sister to so easily obtain a weapon. I mention this whole thing, just to say that Designing Women has not been on the air for at least 15 years, so this episode is at least 15 - 20 years old and I'm guessing not a lot has changed during that time, in terms of taking on gun lobbies.

Oh, and? The gun Suzanne has purchased so easily 15 or 20 years ago and used to spray her own front yard with bullets?

It was an AR-15.

You.are.welcome. 

Food for thought, that's all.