STEREOTYPE: DS is a disease, and people who live with the condition often die young.
FACT: Down syndrome is not a disease, and people living with the condition do not always die young. The condition predisposes people to several ailments, but that is not to say they are sick. They could be very healthy. Life expectancy for people with the condition is on the rise from 60 to 80 years and beyond.
In any case, let me state here that length of days is determined by God.
Improved access to health care has reduced risks.
There is no known cure for Down syndrome, but management measures that focus on helping the child thrive physically and mentally are available. The challenge is in parts of the world where these services are too expensive for some people to access.
Management options could include physical and occasional therapy, inclusive education, open heart surgery, diet control, and so on.
Stereotype: People living with Down syndrome are always happy.
Oftentimes, people with DS are happy and pleasant to be with. They are the light of a party and anywhere they are. It is true that they may not understand sarcasm, but it is certainly absurd to assume they are always happy. They show emotions such as anger, excitement, irritability, and happiness. They are, in most cases, sensitive, sensible, and self-aware.
FACT: PEOPLE WITH DOWN SYNDROME ARE OFTEN HAPPY BUT ALSO CAPABLE OF EXPRESSING OTHER EMOTIONS AS OCCASION SERVES.
STEREOTYPE: People with Down syndrome are mentally retarded and cannot learn.
As always with stereotypes, this belief is a misconception.
Agreeably, individuals living with this condition are cognitively challenged and slow in learning in comparison with their neurotypical peers. We must realize that learning in itself has a broad definition. Learning is beyond academics. Sports, Arts, photography, and theatre are a few creative ways in which learning has expression. It would be a grave error to generalize that people with DS are mentally retarded or cannot learn.
FACT: PEOPLE WITH DOWN SYNDROME ARE NOT MENTALLY RETARDED. THEY LEARN AT A SLOWER RATE THAN THEIR PEERS AND ARE EXCELLING IN MANY FIELDS OF LEARNING, VOCATION AND CRAFT.
DEBUNKING STEREOTYPES: Down syndrome is a rare condition.
I can’t remember seeing anyone with DS until I was probably over 30 years old. I didn’t have a close encounter with someone living with it until my Mimi girl came to my family my loss!
In time past, people who lived with DS were either institutionalized or hidden away from the public. This may be one of the reasons why it looked like it was a rare condition.
Stereotype
Naturally, I was one of those who erroneously thought that Down syndrome was a rare condition (notice I don’t describe it as a disease).
Fact
Down Syndrome factsheets describe DS as the most common chromosomal disorder. Each year, about 6,000 babies are born with Down syndrome, which is about 1 in every 700 babies.
Down syndrome is not strange to people of all races and economic levels.
Did you know that the theme of WDSD 2024 is ‘End the Stereotypes’?
What are stereotypes, you may ask?
A stereotype is a preconceived idea or set of ideas that applies to groups of people, places, or situations. They’re often simple, generalized, or exaggerated ideas like thinking all girls like pink or all boys like sports. They can be about anything—race, age, religion, you name it! They do not capture the full picture of who people really are.
This post identifies some common misconceptions and ideas people have about individuals with Down syndrome. In subsequent posts, we would debunk these misleading misrepresentations.
3rd March every year is marked as World Hearing Day.
Hearing loss is one of the set backs that may affect a person with Down syndrome, so I’ll be including it in the ongoing sensitization by the Engraced Ones as we count down to the celebration of World Down syndrome day 2024.
The theme for this year’s World Hearing Day is, “Changing mindsets: Let’s make ear and hearing care a reality for all!”
My daughter had wax in her ears for 12 years! We visited several Otolaryngologists in Nigeria but didn’t get results. I think they had a very unfriendly approach and couldn’t get my daughter to respond appropriately. There was also the problem of obsolete equipment. On one occasion, the Otolaryngologist advised me to stop worrying because the child could hear.
Well, i knew there was a problem!
This child was born with ear canals so narrow that neither i nor her doctors had been able to take off wax from her ears from birth (she was 8 years old at the time). Also, she was limited in speech, which made it impossible for her to complain if anything went wrong with her ears. Routine hearing assessment is mandatory for people with her condition because there is a high rate of hearing impairment as a result of weakened immunity and an unusually narrow ear canal.
A few weeks ago, we took her for another assessment (4 years after the ordeal i narrated earlier). It took about 3 weeks to have the wax of 12 years cleaned out! Of course, state of the art equipment was used.
The implication of this is that some children and adults with DS and some other conditions could develop hearing problems because we lack the requisite gadgets to make ear and hearing care a reality for all!
What happens to so many children born different who may not have access to the kind of support my child got?
By WHO estimates, about 80% of ear and hearing needs remain unmet.
Sadly, societal misperceptions and stigmatization are implicated as reasons why more people than necessary experience hearing loss.
What then should be done to improve access to hearing aids and other measures that can prevent hearing loss or make its management more holistic?
Today, we call on the government to invest in this aspect of our health. To parents, we plead with you to seek a second opinion if need be as we keep walking towards a society where deafness is reduced to the barest minimum.
my loss!
