Sara Beth

Thanks for sharing this post. I think the patience and receptiveness, as you said, of society as a whole is definitely increasing at a pleasing rate. Everything that is being done now for people with these kinds of special needs makes me happy to live in such a time. I worked at McDonald's when I was 14 and I had several co-workers that could deemed as having "intellectual disabilities", but these people worked and integrated themselves into the work environment just like everyone else. It was refreshing to have that type of work experience. These people are indeed capable.

I really like your post because it addresses how times have changed with people and even families in accepting people who are different from us. It is really depressing that families would shun their own kids if they had a disability. I agree that patience is a virtue. It is necessary to understand as well as get to know people with mental disabilities. Although the ADA outlawed job discrimination, I feel it definitely still exists. Obviously people don't want to put others in situations they can't handle, but I believe that people with mental disabilities can do a lot more in the work force than they currently do. As you said, they are mainstreaming mentally handicapped kids, proving they can handle most situations in a mature manner just as we can.

I agree with you that Societal attitudes towards people with mental disabilities has improved over the last 60 years. This is a great thing to watch. Actually, one of my friends, he has a physical disability so that he can only talk or act slowly than a normal person. However, currently, he is working at one of big companies in MN and I think his case shows that our community does not discriminate people because of the physical disability.

I agree, I really do. But as there is a line to not accept things, I think that there comes a point where we become over-accepting. I have 2 friends and a cousin who both have to deal with mental retardation and they all grew up with different opportunities. My two friends are actually siblings, one with a lesser degree of autism than the other. She and I were best friends when we were younger. I was at her house at least 3 times a week to hang out and never noticed a difference until about 7th grade. When I noticed the difference I just pushed it aside to the fact that in middle school everyone matures differently. She went through high school and functioned well in normal classes, I don't think she even went to the learning disabilities center. However, her brother I knew was autistic even when I was 7. He had a more sever case and after being in elementary school with us, his parents decided it was more important for him to learn in a setting that gave him more opportunities to grow than a public school. I truly honor those parents for their choice. They love their children, I have experienced that first hand and even though they did not have the most well paying jobs they made sure their son had an at home tutor who would come and work with him and ultimately chose to take him to a school that would cost them more so he could grow and have an easier time in society. In my opinion, when it gets to a certain severity, public schools do not have the money or resources to be genuinely helpful and those students should go to a school who can truly help them. I understand being put in a public school with what people call "normal" learning children seems ideal, but from personal experience seeing the growth from the two different settings of my friends it can be more harmful to keep certain students in that public school setting.

On the physical disability matter, I think that for the most part there should be no discrepancy as to who gets to be in a public school or not. However, I have a family member who works with disabled students in school and when it gets to the point the teachers have to clean a student of their bathroom matters in middle and high school I think there should be different arrangements for that student other than forcing the teachers to do a job they are not contracted to do.

When reading those post, I just thought of the effect that having a family member with something such as down syndrome would affect them dramatically. I really like the fact that you do mention the fact that people with disabilities do live a life much similar to people that don't. I especially like the fact that you mention "they have bad days too". This puts the light of disabilities into a whole different perspective. Although they may not be able to do some of the things people are able to that do not have the disability that does not mean that they aren't able to have some of the same routines.