My son has Down Syndrome, and when he was born we were told there's a nonzero chance he'll be non-verbal. It happens.
As it happens, he's generally higher functioning/"mild" intellectual disability, though he still sometimes struggles with saying the words he wants to say. Still, he's hyper-determined and he's made great progress. I think around age 5 or so, I realized him and I just had an honest to goodness, full-on conversation. The kid has a lot of thoughts and very much wants to be as verbal as possible.
As for the person I think he'll become? An extremely funny mother fucker that never has a shortage of friends because of it. Big time theater kid energy, I can very much seem him pursuing something in entertainment when he's older, little dude is fascinated even by the "behind the scenes" stuff of the films/shows he loves. Like, sure kid, we can watch another documentary on the making of the Avatar films.
Piggybacking off your piggyback responding to me...
One of the coolest feelings is when he legitimately enjoys the things I enjoy. We watch Digimon, Godzilla, and X-Men together - I got him a Guilmon plush for Christmas last year and he's insisted on taking it everywhere with us ever since (only one of two plushes I've seen him actually want to sleep with), and for Halloween we're going together as Wolverine (him) and Sabretooth (me).
Mutually enjoying stupid nerd shit with my son has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life.
Nope, but adding it to the list. The Peanut Butter Falcon has been a staple for most of his life, though. I'm willing to put aside my other feelings for Shia LeBouf since its otherwise such a beautiful film (and Shia is actually good in it, despite being an actual cannibal).
I teach at a private school and many of our students have learning disabilities or other issues that make public school extremely challenging. One of my newer students has multiple issues, including physical ticks and problems with balance, so it's clear they have challenges on the first meeting.
I'm teaching them photography, and while some of the very basics are still a minor challenge, like asking how to turn the camera on more than once, they grasped the balance of aperture and shutter speed immediately. They ask great questions too!
While working on a project, they told me they liked my school a lot better than public school. Asking why, they said all their teachers would talk to them like a pet... that cutesy, condescending tone that implies they don't understand anything and only hear the inflection in their voice.
That's just one of many examples I've heard from students over the years. SO many of these kids are intelligent, but the fact they have slow processing, are mostly non-verbal, or some other issue prevents many adults from seeing it.
My favorite analogy for this is having a squirrel and a bird taking a class for getting to the top of trees. The important distinction is knowing if the test is on climbing the tree or just getting to the top. The bird can get to the top faster, but it's not going to climb it.
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u/MoiraBrownsMoleRats 6h ago
My son has Down Syndrome, and when he was born we were told there's a nonzero chance he'll be non-verbal. It happens.
As it happens, he's generally higher functioning/"mild" intellectual disability, though he still sometimes struggles with saying the words he wants to say. Still, he's hyper-determined and he's made great progress. I think around age 5 or so, I realized him and I just had an honest to goodness, full-on conversation. The kid has a lot of thoughts and very much wants to be as verbal as possible.
As for the person I think he'll become? An extremely funny mother fucker that never has a shortage of friends because of it. Big time theater kid energy, I can very much seem him pursuing something in entertainment when he's older, little dude is fascinated even by the "behind the scenes" stuff of the films/shows he loves. Like, sure kid, we can watch another documentary on the making of the Avatar films.