Special needs adoption from a Jewish perspective.

Special needs adoption from a Jewish perspective.

Monday, May 13, 2013

An interesting take on the history of "Down Syndrome"

Worth a read.


2 comments:

  1. Wow. A powerful reminder of just how ugly our not-so-distant past was.

    Is there a movement to change the popular nomenclature from "Down Syndrome"? People do seem to be receptive to this, if it's for the right reasons; hardly anybody refers to T21 children as "Mongoloid" anymore. (Which, now that I think about it, comes directly from Down's original work, doesn't it?)

    This does put an interesting slant on a line from "Praying with Lior" -- "I don't have Down Syndrome, I have Up Syndrome!"

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    Replies
    1. It seems the community is mostly concerned with "People First Language" i.e. "person with Down syndrome" rather than "Down syndrome person". Which I don't personally think accomplishes what the advocates are after.

      I like the idea of shifting the nomenclature to "Trisomy 21" or just "T21". Especially as treatments are improved and opportunities are opened up, the "syndrome" phenotype will come to have less long-term impact, and the main defining characteristic will be the T21 genotype.

      Could even get quirky and call it "Triple BlackJack"....

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