Special Family Network

I am a firm believer in the use of baby sign language. My older child is language delayed, so we started teaching him sign language in order to reduce some of the frustrations that both of us were feeling due to his lack of communication skills (pointing and screaming just wasn’t working for us). We plan to teach our younger son, who has Down Syndrome, sign language sometime in the next few months. We used the My Baby Can Talk DVDs and Baby Einstein to learn the basics and used the signs around our son. It only took a few weeks for us to see results.

Below is a good video of a baby using sign language. A baby will not do the signs perfect (When our son says “Thank You” it looks like “Eat” but we know what he is saying) but this will give you an idea as to what to expect.

The US Space and Rocket center in Huntsville Alabama has opened a Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students. Students who are partially or totally blind are able to attend and do many of the regular activities with a few modifications, such as Braille being added to the space shuttle simulators. For more information on this camp, please click the previous link, or see this article written about this years camp which also has links if you would like to find out more information on this program.

Earlier this week, Oprah had actresses Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete on her show to discuss the impact of their son’s diagnosis of autism in their lives. This is not the first time Oprah has had a show on autism, but it is the first where celebrities have come on and thrown off the perception of a perfect life to let us know that what happened to them could happen to anyone. I admire both women for being so honest and so determined to give their sons the best life that they could possibly give. Part of that determination was accepting what their child had, but refusing to let their sons slip away into that strange world where they would become almost unreachable. To hear more about this remarkable interview, please check out these articles.

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The United States simply does not have enough special education teachers. Many do not want to go into the rewarding field of special education due to the time (paper work) and patience it takes to be a special education teacher. This article sheds some light on what is going on in this country and what several school districts are trying to about it. The bottom line to me is that people going into education should be encouraged to give special education a chance. Let education college students visit more special ed classrooms and don’t limit curriculum to one special education class (Many universities do this). If you think that working with typically developing children is rewarding, special education can be 10 times better.

I would like to say a special Thank You to the people at Babytalk magazine for featuring a child with Down Syndrome on its cover and a wonderful story from a mom’s point of view. It is rare to see a mainstream parenting magazine featuring a child that is considered “different” in a positive light especially with The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists encouraging women to have their pregnancies screened for D0wn Syndrome. Sadly over 90% of expectant moms of a child with Down Syndrome choose to have an abortion rather that take the responsibility of an extraordinary, beautiful human life. Hopefully more magazines will feature special needs children to show parents that having a special needs child is not the end of the world, it is just the beginning of a wonderful journey.

After hearing about a father/son team that competes in triathlons (the son has Cerebral Palsy) a father of a five year old with Cri Du Chat started competing with his own son. In this article he describes how he has been inspired by his son by watching how hard he works in his many different therapies.