Down Syndrome Week spreads awareness
People asked to sign pledge to not use ‘r’ word
Telling proud parents holding their baby you are sorry because the child has Down syndrome is something that should never be done.
This is one of the messages being spread during Canadian Down Syndrome Week, which runs until Tuesday.
This happened to Kim Long, a teacher at Nova Scotia Community College Marconi campus, when she had her son Owen, who is now 12.
For Lynn Levatte, she didn’t hear hurtful words like that when her son Charles was a baby, but she heard them when it was time for Charles, who is now 10, to start school.
“I had people asking me if he was going to go to school. And that was only five, six years ago,” said the mother of four, who is working on her doctorate in education.
“You’re kind of taken back because … you think that we’re moving forward and sometimes there’s still so much work to be done in awareness and education.”
This is why Long and Levatte are both active in Down syndrome education and awareness, something they started doing after their sons were born.
“In the last five or six years we started putting more emphasis on building awareness and not just doing activities for our own membership,” said Long, who volunteers with the local Down syndrome organization with Levatte.
“Awareness to a lot of the issues in the school system, teachers assistants, cutbacks to resources and trying to educate teachers too, because they deal with a lot of students with special needs and they don’t have the proper training.”
During Canadian Down Syndrome Week, NSCC Marconi campus sets up a table where volunteers ask people to sign a pledge to not use the word “retard.” So far this year, more than 300 people have signed and quite a few have refused to.
“They can’t come up with another word in their vocabulary to replace the ‘r’ word I guess,” said Long.
“It’s still surprising that word is used and people don’t think about its impact that it might have on individuals.”
Some of the education happens at schools, teaching students without Down syndrome things like how to play with a child who has it.
This happened at Centre scolaire Étoile de l’Acadie, where Charles goes. The SchoolsPlus outreach worker sat down with students in his class to explain that Charles wants to play but can’t always say he wants to. Instead, they suggested students should take Charles by the hand and guide him to where they are playing.
“Individuals with Down syndrome can still participate and be a part of the community,” said Levatte. “People with Down syndrome drive cars. They have jobs… in every child, special needs or not, there’s so much potential they have,” said Long.