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Societal Hands

7/25/2017

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Societal Hands
by M.L. Crider

www.CriderInk.com


The ticking stopped, her heart, then my clock.

The usual cadence that had run me before this moment, its cocky pronounced presence that stewed in our societal background, ceased.  My usual notice of its pressing and pushing on and on in each of our usual days, that stopped at once.  Time's pointy disorganized teeth that seem forever contented in the endless gnawing out of society's feigned daily rhythm of things... reminding, prodding, poking from its vain place in the hierarchy, boasting dumb smiles here and there across its rotting mouth, that one, hushed.  Suddenly, even it bowed in silence for the sacredness of this pregnant moment. 

Void was now boss.


The incessant pecking out of time as we know and have agreed to call and adhere to as being, had always ensured that I know it be there encompassing all of us in its quiet ruling.  I pressed “End” on my tacky shallow crap phone.  
Death taunted like elusive fading rings of smoke, dissipating as quickly as the fickle life they had lived.

There was no such ticking now; there was no such ...anything to sense.
Explanation of the profundity of the moment of learning of death seems to rob its sacred essence with each… additional... word. Ah, but the quiet fortuity of not committing such forever branding occurrence to indelibility may indeed provide more hazard by way of the inherent irreverence which would otherwise be the refusal of concession in the taxing way of secret.

My mind, my throat, my existence took the hit of this heavy void like one victimizing inhale of cramped freeway exhaust. It insisted to stay. It clutched me as if some foreign tentacled vacuum had pierced my throat while the air that caressed the flowers and the regular sunset sounds each night seeped into, around me, and then them—as if only the memory of a single scent permeated and sustained like some old piano music lingers. A merciless phone call was the knife that instantly obliterated any sense of my now holding the promise of some kind of choice in being so mentally dexterous to be afforded a kind employment of any kind of logic for now.  I had no choices. Pressing 'end' sliced the air and then sucked me down, enjoying the funneling of itself like a mean master whipping what he thinks he owns, into my cheap... deep chair. My throat refused to swallow. My tongue suddenly knew how large it was and for the first time it felt like a distant stranger in my mouth; even it didn't have a home anymore. Words seemed too shallow to be deserving of the inhale or the noise that they would have so bossily required. To speak of it, to give it sound, would have been to manicure the very sacred quiet of which had me in its grasp. 

Death.  News by telephone. The anonymity of its silent impervious gravity, the cheap bastard!  A volcano erupted its unexpected lava from the pit of me; I would soon be coerced to pay handsomely albeit the vomit of flaming red's fast engine brewing in the living guts of me—fast tears, thick spit, heavy breathing, and sleep raped throughout twenty-four hour periods. I feared the potential cost to my usual days being that this had just rendered them notional; shock arrested the adrenals and so had me in its gloating trickery. Dumbstruck, unequivocally inept for any description that this quicksand yearned to locate in order to create some order inside, I sat. 

Empty. Quiet. 

Nothingness never felt so full.

She died.  



Death:  I would have to shake its inevitably bony hand now. How shallow and fickle the fingers of death!  Their clammy indifference with offering a goodbye is like a man with no spine whose doughy hand touches yours in lieu of a strong man's most welcomed generous handshake.  Callous nonchalance: like the sharp cackling and vexatious spirit of a coquettish old woman who boasts insensitively gluttonous blue-veined breasts that have drawn every man throughout her robotic manipulative life.  The crawling greedy roots of a tree shoot fast up past the deep dirt that it uses as its home, suckling gentle life force from every scathing spear without a tossed thought. 

I wanted to spit on death. I wished to incinerate the books that would attempt to teach of one's exact process in all things grieve.

Pride's turtle shell armor swelled to cover my angst.  Defeated, I conceded such to this new insensitive timelessness—if only to have been done with it.  The soundless air proved too stifling to conjure a noise or make any kind of even the slightest physical movement.  Death does not deserve the kindness, the specificity, or the entitlement of being granted more time than it thieved from you, and the now deceased.   Tomorrow may offer an excruciating crawl into acceptance, but for now?  I hated death.  I hated mere death with more keen investiture than dare I had ever felt passion or love for anyone.

It may indeed be dreamier for the dead to be dead from this body than they would have ever believed when living, but death news to this survivor served up a kaleidoscope of feelings that I knew the normal engine of my heart could simply not afford to supply.

© M.L. Crider 
®WGA West 2012-2019.  All Rights Reserved.

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Should we further the gifted & talented, the twice-exceptional, and the disabled in our schools, communities, in and for our society?

7/24/2017

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Psychology of Exceptional Children
M5A2: Reflection on the Exceptionality Continuum
M.L. Crider
Argosy University
July 23, 2017


Reflection on The Exceptionality Continuum
​


    In order for a society to be able to honestly talk about something, such society must be comfortable with doing so.  I posit that we are still trying to please each other more than truly help each other and so we cannot help each other until we agree to be decently comfortable speaking about uncomfortable subjects.  Exceptionality children/teens are one such uncomfortable subject.  We seem to be at a standstill due to our discomfort about the truth and our shying away from discomfort … at all costs.  This time, children and a better society are the price for discomfort.  So, please sit back, prepare for a bit of discomfort, and roll up a sleeve.

    I propose that twice-exceptional children/teens indicate--by the nature of what they are, both gifted and talented and showing signs of disability--that focus in our schools must be invested fairly between supporting and insulating the gifted and talented [GT] as well as those on the disability end of the exceptionalities continuum. 

The twice-exceptional human beings make it a must because we can’t separate both poles when it comes to furthering them.  “In addition to not meeting their potential, these students often become bored in school and sometimes develop emotional or behavioral problems. GT children might also miss out on developing study skills, because they have not been challenged […] GT can exist with different disabilities, such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, deafness, or autism spectrum disorders (Argosy, 2017).” This begs us to see all children/teens with a fair, an equal eye, in the name of providing the very best that we can muster in order to further everyone, wherever s/he might be on the continuum.


    Current focus in American schools tends to be on evaluating and providing interventions for students on the disability end of the exceptionalities continuum, rather than on those considered gifted and talented. “The main focus of federal legislation has been on advancing the learning of average and below-average learners, rather than on those performing in the gifted range (Argosy, 2017).”  “There is no standard definition of GT. Most definitions are in line with the federal definition, which includes high achievement capability in areas such as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 2010, p. 418).”

    Further regarding giving proper attention to GTs: “It invites little attention. In many states, it is not a vital consideration for funding, supporting, or encouraging. As a nation, we are not committed to these individuals who represent this unique slice of the ability/talent spectrum. Beliefs prevail that these children, youth, and young adults will thrive without any specialized services or supports in developing their intellect, creativity, abilities, gifts, and talents. In contrast, others believe that nurturing these abilities, gifts, and talents is absolutely essential and vital to our collective well-being and our progress as a nation. (Hardman, 2013, p. 403).” I would say that at this juncture in time, there would be no strong argument that I can make for focusing time and resources solely on children with disabilities, rather than on those considered gifted and talented. We must venture with fast aim to do both.  

    This is because at this point in time, the pendulum has swung all the way from the severity of extremes of the likes of the famous “Professor Lewis Terman, the nation's most famous psychologist and the man who had planted the term "IQ" in America's vocabulary (Leslie, 2000)” to swinging swiftly in the opposite direction to George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” ripple effect that uplifts the disabled end of the spectrum, which is still echoing loudly throughout the chambers, the halls and desks of our schools’ current Common Core. 

    Our society seems to shift its vision only every so often and this time, the pendulum must swing back more slowly to strike an even tone, teetering right in the middle, which is ironic, because both ends are still not stretched to maximal maximums as far as truly working for our children/teens at either end of the continuum currently.  There is much work that lay ahead of us in this regard. “Energy and capacity must be uncovered, developed, and utilized. This is true of children, youth, and young adults who are gifted and talented or who have the potential for becoming such. In the absence of appropriate development and nurturing, this renewable resource in each generation of young people will be lost, underdeveloped, or not developed at all (Hardman, 2013, p. 403).”

    There have been extremes in vantage points throughout history with regards to how we see those exceptionalities that are disabled and how we see the gifted and talented.  Each is deserving of much merit, much credit, and understandably so.  We should welcome now the loyal ghost of Professor Terman’s guidance of the gifted and talented—minus his belief in eugenics that would only keep the high IQ lot around for birthing.  A novel outside the domain of this paper should address such, but for now, in essence, this can sum it up:

“The Stanford-Binet made Terman a leader in a fervent movement to take testing far beyond the schoolhouse and Army base. Proponents considered intelligence the most valuable human quality and wanted to test every child and adult to determine their place in society. The "intelligence-testers" -- a group that included many eugenicists -- saw this as the tool for engineering a fairer, safer, fitter and more efficient nation, a "meritocracy" run by those most qualified to lead. In their vision of a vibrant new America, IQ scores would dictate not only what kind of education a person received but what work he or she could get. The most important and rewarding jobs in business, the professions, academia and government would go to the brightest citizens. People with very low scores -- under about 75 -- would be institutionalized and discouraged or prevented from having children (Leslie, 2000).”

    For we cannot in our evolution as a society go about maintaining the mentality of killing entire sects of people or only wanting the highly intelligent to reproduce.  This is preposterous as an answer of any kind; moreover, it rather rightly begs the question of the insanity levels of those who proposed such inhumane options before our time.  We have woken to the fact and must strive now to better children/teens anywhere on the exceptionality continuum and not assume that anyone is average, in fact.  Better testing, different testing might open a window in order to be able to facilitate this.

There is a strong argument that can be made for focusing on those considered gifted and talented due to gravity’s turn at the pendulum swinging back in order to level itself naturally. “a) giftedness is a sub-culture, b) people with special gifts also identify with and operate in multiple cultural contexts, and c) in order to be effective in working with gifted clients, one must accurately understand the interaction of the client's multiple cultural identities (Levy & Plucker, 2003).” 

Every culture needs art, music, talented people in academia, the arts, and sports.  Who will we study in our higher learning institutions if there is no Virginia Woolf, no Vincent Van Gogh?  Who will we study in music if there were no Billie Holiday, no Tom Waits, no Mozart and no Amadeus?  Who will be the mavericks, the MLKs, the Eleanor Roosevelts, the Charles Dickens, Dr. Seuss, or Tiger Woods, if we do not support the growth and fruition of excellence as well as the bettering and fulfillment of our disabled? 

    The only thing that would be truly equal is the travesty that would be if we do not find practical methods, systems, and different ways of “testing” that yearn in powerful chorus the singular aim to achieve fervent growth of both and of all in between both ends.  We definitely need to get hip to be louder about furthering those with talent and abilities; we need an inspired society.  These things press a nerve in all of us to talk about even out at a dinner party, but we must strive to make it less awkward.  A culture must have many components and it is high time that our schools grow comfortable with GTs and the furthering of them, the proper testing of them. 

    The critical mass changes the direction of a ship; regarding change and swift evolution, the status quo is always only responsible for sinking the ship in its sagging tired middle.  What if no one had supported MLK to speak?  What if no one had supported and provided opportunity for Tiger Woods to pick up a golf club daily?  What if no one had allowed Virginia Woolf to write books with wells of ink, quill feather pens, and writing tables because she was a woman in that day and age?  What if Billy Joel hadn’t been handed a microphone and some piano lessons? 

    It is difficult to talk about this sometimes in our society; it is.  Perhaps without a society that is comfortable being honest, we cannot make the strides that we all know in our gut of guts needs to be activated and in full swing.  We all yearn to “be one” or “be equal”, but the fact is: we are not; we’re just not equal.  We deserve to live in a society that aims to treat all as equal for opportunity’s sake, but it is certainly true that we are not equal.  We all begin at different levels of intellectual, spiritual, and physical abilities.  So, we should rather aim at implementing in our schools some tests and activities that aim at truly behooving the entire continuum of children/teens with exceptionalities, hoping that each in their unique parts to play on this Earth, are best equipped to be able to do their very own parts in this human machine.

    The term exceptionalities includes a continuum from those with low-incidence disabilities to gifted and talented. All of these children have in common being not of “the norm”; they are well above or below average.  This is important because our IQ tests should be bettered.  Pens and parchment should not be the only way to test children/teens/human beings of any age due to the question of leaving those anywhere in the range of exceptionality out of such.  The GTs are apt to be bored and the disabled are left too far behind in society with current IQ tests.  How about if we incorporate group sessions, some kind of communicative games that would be employed to “test” people? 

This, in addition to basic IQ tests and perhaps tests of their very own variety, targeted at GTs and tests targeted to reach the disabled end of the spectrum.  After all, to find true intelligence, shall we “grade” how a piece of music affects a human’s capacity of soul as well?  I think so.  Emotional intelligence is needed in our society and it has stayed outside the realm of schools entirely; it is found in magazine quizzes next to the crossword puzzles or in dusty self-help books in used book stores. 

    Study upon well-meaning study has been done to try to find what it is exactly that creates the right environs for gifted and talented children/teens to be maximally supported and to grow upon this.  “It is clear that significantly greater development occurs when a concerted effort has been made at both school and in the home to provide the talented child with increasingly complex knowledge and skills […] In a previous synthesis of research, it was concluded that an average of 1/3 to ½ an additional year’s achievement growth should be possible within the school program of talent development when the child participates in the growth area on a daily basis […] It is believed that academic gains will continue year after year in the targeted talent area for so long as this daily challenge is provided (Rogers, 2007, pp. 382-383).”


    Physical capacity, physical intelligence is an important thing to “note” when grappling with aiming at the totality of the IQ blender as well.  We need to transform our way of testing instead of relying on narrow tests of old to rightly somehow encompass the actual way things are—the actual way that people excel and fail.  What if some kind of test, in order to establish robust testing as maximally as possible, was to be taken in the middle of a rainstorm, in a desert, underneath a starry calm sky?  Are we shown our differences from how we each respond to an evocative opera and to a heated close basketball game?  I say that we are.

“A carefully constructed program of talent development based on student interest, highly relevant and motivating tasks, and the use of high-level and sophisticated thinking skills should be instituted in the primary grades. Two beliefs that mitigate against adequate talent development are: (a) the belief that it is the role of gifted and talented programs to serve only those children that parents bring to the school door signed, sealed, and delivered as gifted; and (b) inherent beliefs about the low capabilities of poor and minority children […]  Within the American public schools, giftedness is associated largely with traditional school skills and characteristics measured by traditional intelligence and achievement tests—advanced vocabulary, highly developed verbal skills in written and oral expression in Standard English, and early and advanced reading skills (Callahan, 2005, pp. 99-101).”

    Something I learned in my research and readings is that twice exceptional children/teens need more of a spotlight just as a forgotten sect of otherwise promising/would-be-GTs if our vision shifts and we cease not giving those with socioeconomic challenges no deserved radar for greatness, for insulating their potential in order to “experience excellence (TAG, 2010)”.  I would like to work with twice exceptional children, such as those who are GTs with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) in order to learn how to bridge the gap for them so that they will be able to thrive more fully in our society and in a more socially accepted view. 

    We have come a long way since locking the disabled up and the cold eugenics of a few such as Terman wishing to clone only our “best” genes.  We have miles and miles to go.  Let’s get hip to it, comfortable with talking about it, and get on it!  Cheers be to a day when a status quo is no longer present and the glorious differences in all of us are not only celebrated, but furthered to stretch and reach to each of our maximal potential.  That will mean we have done our best to support and further every human being, of every variety, every color, creed, ability, and … calling.



References

Argosy University Online. (2017). Psychology of Exceptional Children. Module 5.     
    Identification of GTs. Twice Exceptional. Retrieved July 20, 2017, from     http://www.myeclassonline.com
Callahan, C. M. (2005). Identifying gifted students from underrepresented populations. Theory
    into Practice, 44(2), 98–104. (ProQuest Document ID: 218842507)
    http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/
    218842507?accountid=34899

Hardman, M. L., Drew, C. J., & Egan, M. W. (2010). Human exceptionality: School, community,
    and family (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. 
Hardman, M. L.  (2013). Human Exceptionality: School, Community, and Family, 11th Edition[VitalSource Bookshelf version].  Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781285594972

Leslie, M. (2000, July/August). The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman. Stanford Magazine.
    Retrieved from http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2000/julaug/articles/terman.html
Levy, J. J., & Plucker, J. A. (2003). Assessing the psychological presentation of gifted and
    talented clients: A multicultural perspective. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 16(3), 229–    247. (ProQuest Document ID: 207994607)
    http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/
    207994607?accountid=34899

Rogers, K. B. (2007). Lessons learned about educating the gifted and talented: A synthesis of the
    research on educational practice. The Gifted Child Quarterly, 51(4), 382–396. (ProQuest     Document ID: 212096671)
    http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/docview/
    212096671?accountid=34899

TAG - The Association for the Gifted. (2010). Standards. Retrieved from http://www.cectag.org/

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Is Love Enough? - A Look Into The Intellectually Disabled being Parents

7/21/2017

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Psychology of Exceptional Children
M3A2: Analysis of Historical, Legal, and Ethical Issues
M.L. Crider
Argosy University
July 12, 2017
 

Analysis of Historical, Legal, and Ethical Issues
“Love is patient; Love is kind”—so the trusty age-old adage goes.  Love is the universal additive or component that makes anything better.  Whether we are talking about the added love that goes into a home-cooked meal or the added love that makes parenting excellence, it is difficult to deny that love is an important ingredient to almost anything or any relationship anyone can conceptualize of having.  But in the case of parents with intellectual disability [ID], another famous adage comes to mind.  Echoing on from a Peruvian Inca prophecy, “When the eagle of the North flies with the condor of the South—the spirit of the land she will awaken.”

A young girl named Mary Ann was raised by two parents with ID as explored in the video titled Is Love Enough? (Puchniak & Handel, 2001) in which we are able to witness the obstacles, current and past ideas, tribulations, joys, and heart-wrenching moments of all that being the parent with ID that is raising his/her child.  Mary Ann’s story is remarkable in that she at once is a fair judge of the needed deliberation of such actuality, in that it is and has been her own life and upbringing. 

This seemingly well-adjusted teen sits before the camera with a wisdom beyond her years, asking us to please consider not allowing people with ID to parent.  This seeming oxymoron brings tears and begs many-a-question.  As per the Peruvian Inca prophecy, Mary Ann would be the spirit of the land, the eagle of the North would be what we as a society deem is best for parenting, and the condor of the South would represent the seeming incredulousness of allowing a person with ID to parent a child.  But ah, if they fly together … then what can we all come up with that may be best for all parties involved and for our societies at large? Is love of parent to child enough to constitute good parenting, or not?  This is what this paper explores.

Historical, legal, and ethical issues are presented and touched upon in various ways in the video.  Mary Ann sobers the audience with the following statement about her feelings about having been raised by two parents with ID:

“I love my life. I'm a very happy person and um… and I’m very grateful that… that my parents had me, but to be honest, if you take away my grandparents, if you take away all the support of people that I had in my high school, I wouldn't have turned out well at all, I don't believe, and I think that's just simply not fair. You can talk about the rights of the parents, which obviously they have, but you also need to consider what's in the best interest of the child, and having parents who just can’t give you what you need is not in your best interests (Puchniak & Handel, 2001).”

If our hearts are in charge, this exploration paper could end here, but exploring other vantage points is vital.  We would perhaps like to say that as a society, we have come a long way when considering the differences from about a decade or so ago when the video that tells the remarkable Mary Ann’s story, but there are still issues such as acceptance, support, and different terminology that need to be furthered, more than just addressing.  Our day and age does a great deal of touching upon topics, and somehow giving a salute that our mere doing so has somehow provided shrift with each other’s educated opinions. 

Why do we collectively concur that it be tolerable behavior for us to believe this? The available literature is basically qualified people still giving their opinions and tagging the articles with their PhD status.  No one seems bold enough to drop the gavel and pronounce what is and what will no longer be acceptable with regards to children such as Mary Ann.  We deliberate with no end, fearing to look less smart or be less politically correct in the eyes of our professional peers.  Someone must take a stand at some juncture.  This mere touching upon the issue, just that we discuss it, is far too shallow; it does little to give the issue its due diligence in our qualified or caring collective minds. We must aim to be more responsible and address certain issues such as clarification of what our society defines or deems reasonable and proper when it comes to parenting and being a parent with ID.  We must learn as a whole people when to allow feelings to make laws and provisions for the best of all of us and when to have to coldly set a boundary for necessary logic as well.

The level of causation is a good place to start when considering decisions of such magnitude as whether or not to trust a person with ID to parent.  Intellectual Disability is currently defined as “… significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance (Center for Parent Information and Resources, 2017).” 

Historically, in seems to be the consensus that, “For individuals with mild intellectual disabilities, the cause of the problem is not generally apparent. A significant number of these individuals come from families of low socioeconomic status and diverse cultural backgrounds; their home situations often offer few opportunities for learning, which only further contributes to their challenges at school. Additionally, because these high-risk children live in such adverse economic conditions, they generally do not receive proper nutritional care. In addition to poor nutrition, high-risk groups are in greater jeopardy of receiving poor medical care and living in unstable families (Hardman, 2013, p. 222).”

There is much to be gleaned from an epoch in the annals of our history with the sensitivity of our subject and the decisions that must be made still:  “Times have moved on from Mickelson’s concern for informing methods to control parents with intellectual disability […] However, the conceptualization of their parenting as parenting in extremis remains today […] This is reflected in the three major themes in the literature which is now in its seventh decade […] The enforced sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities in the early part of the twentieth century is a practice which continues today in some parts of the world […] Despite this extreme infringement of human rights, people with intellectual disability have always become parents without regard for the merits or otherwise of their parenting (Llewellyn & Hindmarsh, 2015).”

Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the IDEA influence these decisions, but the word influence doesn’t seem to be influential enough to firmly create.  IDEA is immensely helpful in that schools must abide by this and facilitate our children/teens with ID to the best of their ability.  The ADA seems like a pregnant baby that just took too long to be born, but is here to stay in our society in its good aims and good will.  But, all in all, we are still exploring like mavericks of the Wild West in their wagons, whispering of creeks and farm land nearby, but without providing an actual visible map in the grand scheme of things.

A burgeoning diagnostic scale seems promising in the vein of hard results that will allow us a measuring point to utilize from which we can go on to decipher the grey zones from the black and white: “AAIDD’s Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior Scale (DABS) is under development […] The DABS provides a comprehensive standardized assessment of adaptive behavior, […] precise diagnostic information around the cutoff point where an individual is deemed to have “significant limitations” in adaptive behavior […] The presence of such limitations is one of the measures of intellectual disability (AAIDD - American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 2017).”  DABS measures three different domains regarding adaptive behavior that we human beings use daily in order to properly function such as conceptual skills--like literacy and concepts such as counting money and how to tell time—basic functional social skills, and necessary practical daily living skills in individuals.  The professional ethical principles that might apply to the situation are to adhere to IDEA and the basis of the ADA.

Two arguments exist: we are either for or against parents with ID being acceptable.  Our mentor, Mary Ann, deserves a sort of “life-time PhD” due to her life being a classroom for what we deliberate about regarding parents with ID.  Mary Ann ushers us to her way of thinking which clearly is that she does not give her nod to people with ID being fully capable of parenting fully.  No child needs to feel burdened by feeling the innate need to be protective and take care of his/her own parents.  Mary Ann confides in the audience when sharing:

“I've always had a sense of feeling like I need to protect them. Um… Um… If I feel for… for any moment that somebody is going to hurt them, or is going to take advantage of them, I… It’s almost an instinctive thing that I get in the pit of my stomach and just anger rises, just that I… that I need to protect them, that I need to… to… to make sure that they won’t get hurt, and that’s been there for as long as I can remember. It really is, I can only imagine that that would be a similar feeling to how a parent feels towards their children (Puchniak & Handel, 2001).”

This is also backed up by a logical comment made by Sue, a commentator, when she shares a dilemma that brings tears to most any audience member in its crushing hard cold truth.  About Mary Ann’s parents, Sue says, “They have difficulty understanding abstracts […] So if you say, you know, you have to put food on the table for Mary Ann supper every night, they'll say great, they'll do it every night […] But when Mary Ann comes home in tears, because somebody has said something mean to her or she is frustrated, because she couldn't understand something in school or she… any of those things they couldn't understand (Puchniak & Handel, 2001).”

On the flip-side, “I would advise that social workers shouldn’t assume that just because a parent has a label of a disability means that they don’t have a right to be a parent,” he says. “The key issue is the ability of the parent to support their child and to manage that role effectively. Sometimes that may include the support of other people and that’s OK (Company & Getz, 2011).”
Also to this side of the situation, the choir of advocates nowadays that is in support of people with ID to be able to parent is not a small force not to be reckoned with: “Common myth is that parents with intellectual disabilities can’t learn the skills they need to be parents. In reality, they can learn with good teaching, good materials, and a lot of practice. Parenting is something you can learn, like anything else, she says. Building on strengths and breaking down the task into small parts—teaching each part—is important. A good teaching program uses pictures or video. The teacher doesn’t just talk or use printed materials. Good teaching also gives the student time to learn. One of the problems with parenting skills programs that are set up for anyone to take is that they go too fast. Parents with intellectual disabilities need to find a program that lets them stop and repeat the lesson if they’re not there yet (Company & Getz, 2011).”

“Parents face an increased risk of losing their children […] and that their children are more likely to be described as vulnerable […] Research has shown that the removal of children is often viewed as a consequence of parental incompetence but in reality it may be due more to lack of appropriate long-term support or specialist service provision […] Significantly, training programmes for parents with learning disabilities have been shown to be effective in increasing skills and competencies (Baum, 2016).”

It seems that parents with ID, no matter how dearly they love their children, just are not up to the immense task of understanding abstracts of life, i.e. being able to add up the whole sense of a child/teen’s situational life, behaviors, feelings, and attitudes.  “Assessing minimal parental competence is a significant issue in the child protection system as there are no agreed definitions of adequate parenting and parental competence (Bromfield & Lamont, 2009).”

If children do not deeply feel understood, they do not feel safe in this world in general unless outside help of family and friends, of those qualified at schools and in their communities, come together to aid the situation and be stalwart in the way of loyalty, be an on-going trusted presence in their lives.

Regarding supports or interventions for the family, communities and their schools, I believe that Mary Ann speaks the loudest when we consider her own sobering credentials:

“The issue is not people with developmental disabilities having children, it’s whether or not they can actually do what they need to do to be good parents to them. And so, I… if… if there were social workers that could be there 24 hours, then… then I would say go for it, but the reality just is that there isn’t, and that does sound very hypocritical, but um… I don’t think people with developmental disabilities should be having children at this point in time (Puchniak & Handel, 2001).”

Mary Ann’s testimony to the audience is not current opinion, however: “People with ID have the right to make decisions about having and raising children and to have access to the proper supports on an individual basis to assist them in raising their children within their own home […] While parents without disabilities often receive support and ideas from other parents, those with ID typically are unable to obtain and develop such relationships that provide natural support […] Other supports provided through government programs or non-profit agencies are also scarce in most communities (ARC, 2016).”

In so far as our current thinking regarding those with ID parenting, as we pick up our pens, paper, and ink and continue embarking upon resolutions for the heart and gut-wrenching decisions that we must come to make now and in the future for our children that are being parented by those with ID and other exceptionalities, the question of love still persists. Mary Ann comforts and confounds us in her own words if we are to grant those with ID the right, the privilege, and the responsibility of parenting their own children. Mary Ann comforts and further insulates our persistent confusion in this way, emoting a certain promise at the end of the day for decision-makers: “I don’t really regret anything that I've done, because everything that I have done has made me who I am and I think despite everything that I've turned out okay (Puchniak & Handel, 2001).” 
​
God bless and keep sound of mind and impeccably sane of heart the law-making citizens and our judges that rule over them, in our well-meaning United States of America.
 
 
References
AAIDD - American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. (2017). Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior Scale. Retrieved July 9, 2017, from http://aaidd.org/intellectual-disability/diagnostic-adaptive-behavior-scale#.WWZra9PLYfw
ARC. (2016). Resources: Parents with intellectual disability. Retrieved July 8, 2017, from http://www.thearc.org/what-we-do/resources/fact-sheets/parents-with-idd
Baum, S. (2016, February 18). Parents with intellectual disabilities. Retrieved July 9, 2017, from http://www.intellectualdisability.info/family/articles/parents-with-intellectual-disabilities
Bromfield, L., & Lamont, A. (2009, December). Parental intellectual disability and child protection: Key issues. NCPC Issues, No. 31. Retrieved July 10, 2017, from https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/parental-intellectual-disability-and-child-protection-key-i
Center for Parent Information and Resources. (2017). Intellectual disability. Retrieved July 9, 2017, from http://www.parentcenterhub.org/intellectual/
Company, I. G., & Getz, L. (2011, November/December). Parenting with intellectual disabilities — changing times. Social Work Today Vol. 11, No. 6, p. 14. Retrieved July 8, 2017, from http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/111511p14.shtml
Hardman, M. L.  (2013). Human Exceptionality: School, Community, and Family, 11th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version].  Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781285594972
Llewellyn, G., & Hindmarsh, G. (2015, February 26). Parents with intellectual disability in a population context. Retrieved July 12, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4408356/
Puchniak, T. (Director), & Handel, A. (Producer). (2001). Is Love Enough? [Video file].
Filmakers Library. Retrieved July 11, 2017, from Academic Video Online: Premium.
 
 
 
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The Deaf Culture in America: A Family

7/21/2017

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Psychology of Exceptional Children
M4A1: Low-Incidence Exceptionalities: The Deaf Culture
M.L. Crider
Argosy University
July 15, 2017
 
Low-Incidence Exceptionalities: The Deaf Culture
 
Birds of a feather flock together.  This is what I learned to really understand from the video documentary, Sound and fury: Six years later.  It seems in life that whether we are talking about any group of human beings, that people in general or with exceptionalities, feel most comfortable around similar people, i.e. people who live as they live, endure what they endure, and understand what they understand.  In the case of exceptionality families, this basic yearning to be near similar people/places/things/situations, seems to be only an intensified yearning.
“Deafness describes people whose hearing loss is in the extreme: 90 dB or greater. Even with the use of hearing aids or other forms of amplification, the primary means for developing language and communication for people who are deaf is through the visual channel. Deafness as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) means “a hearing impairment which is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, which adversely affects educational performance” --IDEA, 34 C.F.R. 300.7 (Hardman, 2013, p. 320).”

The deaf family, the Artinians, are a loving family that is used to their own deaf world.  They were so used to it, in fact, that when the idea of cochlear implants that could help his children be able to hear were introduced as an option, the family wanted so much for their children to remain in the visual world they live in/understand more than letting them go into the normal world of hearing and seeing, that they physically relocated to Maryland far away from grandparents so that Nita, the deaf mother, could feel more comfortable raising her family. 

Peter, the deaf father, was very protective of his children remaining “in the deaf world”, so to speak, and the thought of cochlear implant surgery was so invasive and frightening to him, that he worked in New York four days a week and would commute home to family in Maryland—just so that Nita and the kids felt comfortable in their deaf school and in their deaf community. “04:10PETER ARTINIAN JR. The idea of this cochlear implant surgery is so scary, it's so invasive.  They drill through the skull and have to go very deeply inside.  I'm afraid that cochlear implants are going to create a bunch of robots. It just doesn’t seem right for a deaf person because our natural communication is signing and being in the deaf world (Aronson, 2006).”

The above speaks volumes if we really (ironically)… listen.  Another touching part of the documentary was when the deaf mother, Nita, questioned her young deaf child, Heather, about being implanted (below script).  The grandparents fought with Nita and Peter about their reticence to implant the children because the grandparents thought it would be in the best interest of the children:

“01:55NITA ARTINIAN Why do you want a cochlear implant now?
HEATHER ARTINIAN Because I want to hear everything.
02:00NITA ARTINIAN Everything?
HEATHER ARTINIAN I need to hear alarms, smoke detectors for fire and what else? (Aronson, 2006).”
 
The fighting conversation on video went like this and let us understand the depth and emotional strain that this placed on Nita and Peter (the parents) and Mari and her husband (grandparents who wanted the cochlear implants for their grandchildren):
 
“04:55NITA ARTINIAN We are a deaf family.  Peter and I grew up deaf, we know what it's like growing up in a hearing culture. You don’t understand deaf people's feelings.
05:00MARI ARTINIAN (inaudible) deaf way. There are both worlds here. You only want deaf world for your children. You are limiting your children, you are forcing them.
05:10PETER ARTINIAN JR. Ma…
05:15MARI ARTINIAN Wait a minute. You are forcing them to live only in a deaf world. You are not…
05:20NITA ARTINIAN Heather's Mother That's not true, Mari. That is not true. When we decided not to do the implant everything was so messed up.  My mother-in-law was angry, my dear friends were angry, I was angry, and I just said that’s it. I just had to drop it.  That’s why we moved to Maryland. I needed to get out, I needed to protect myself. We wanted to be with deaf people who understood us who are like us (Aronson, 2006).”
 
This truly helped me to grasp the fear of the Artinians about feeling a strong sense of losing their children forever to the normal world of hearing and seeing instead of leaving their kids in the deaf world with them.  They were afraid of this more so than just for the surgical reasons; it seems they were afraid to have their kids abandon the way they live and understand the world.  This is a tough decision for the Artinians.  Six years later, after Nita had been living in the deaf community in Maryland with the kids, Nita had a breakdown, was medicated, and then Peter moved them all into the grandparents’ home back in New York.  At that point in time (six years before Heather’s implants), the grandfather put his foot down and demanded that Peter and Nita allow their kids the gift of hearing in the normal world.  The angst that is seen and felt in this documentary shows that every person thinks their own world is “the normal world”. We must truly have empathy and compassion for this fact in order to be able to understand fully what is in the best interest of a family.

Regarding the medical and scientific side of things, Dr. Simon Parisier, cochlear implant surgeon, had this to say about the critical nature of timing with regards to the age of the children and the timeframe with regards to speech and memory.  This has to do with the prelingual hearing loss (below age 2 or speech learning age) versus the postlingual hearing loss (above age 2):


“02:15DR. SIMON PARISIER Cochlear Implant Surgeon The younger the person who receives a cochlear implant, the more likely they ought to develop clear understandable speech.  Children who are implanted at one year of age develop language skills that are very similar to normal hearing kids. There is always a slight language delay, which you can't seem to erase, but in a one-year-old that language delay is just a matter of a few months. The older the child gets, the greater the gap there is between a normal hearing child and a child who is profoundly deaf (Aronson, 2006).”

“In addition to the individual’s sensitivity to loudness and pitch, two other factors are involved in defining deafness and hard of hearing: the age of onset and the anatomical site of the loss.  Hearing loss may be present at birth (congenital) or acquired at any time during life. Prelingual loss occurs prior to the age of 2, or before speech development. Postlingual loss occurs at any age following speech acquisition. In nine out of ten children, deafness occurs at birth or prior to the child’s learning to speak. The distinction between a congenital and an acquired hearing loss is important. The age of onset will be a critical variable in determining the type and extent of interventions necessary to minimize the effect of the individual’s disability. This is particularly true in relation to speech and language development. A person who is born with hearing loss has significantly more challenges, particularly in the areas of communication and social adaptation (Hardman, 20130101, p. 320).”
 
            If I were to work with a deaf family in helping them to be able to decide such huge life markers, such broad and deep decisions of changing their worlds, I would recommend that they invite me into their home—as once upon a time our medical doctors used to do back in the 1950s, knowing that families must learn to trust a physician and to leave this important socioemotional component out of our equation is to practice a faulty equation—and let me eat dinner with them, coexist with them, share time with them in their own environment that brings comfort and ritual. 

Being in their own home environment seems vital; this is to set up trust.  I do not believe a doctor in a white suit at a hospital—no matter how sincere or well-meaning—could win the confidence of a deaf family because their knowing of the lack of understanding would still be present and a hurdle for being able to introduce the medical side of things and the options for them to consider. 

After having attempted to set up a bond of trust with the exceptionality family, I would with much empathy, respect, and compassion, only then present them with the medical evidence, support groups and community resources that would help them to transition into living a completely different life, aka a different world, in their same lifetimes.  To us “normal-hearing-folk”, it may seem that simply getting cochlear implants would be immediately beneficial, but we must consider that for the child, such as Heather, this is literally having her wake up to a new morning in a brand-new world. 

Do we understand how strange it is for a Bipolar person who is highly familiar with riding waves of mania/inspiration with varying alternating episodes of black depressions to suddenly be on medication that halts all of this?  Mania/depression cycles used to be his/her “normal world”.  Now, being on medication, the person literally is faced with an even world—i.e. one that suddenly robs the inspiration/mania and voids the black depressions.  As seemingly beneficial as this may be on the outside looking in, can we really ever know—ever truly be able to be them in order to get a glimpse or a dose of how exactly foreign this “new existence” is for them? 

This innocent, but pragmatic lack of understanding should not be minimized in our practice when trying to assist a family with exceptionality—with any exceptionality.  Even those with ASD, Bipolar Disorder, and other so-called “disorders”, we must understand that simply putting a person on medication could change his/her entire life and lifestyle, i.e. his/her comfort zone in how to exist and thrive, and like the deaf family, it will be altering his/her/their whole world. 

 “The U.S. Department of Education (2011) indicated that more than 73,000 students defined as having a hearing impairment and between the ages of 6 and 21 are receiving special education services. These students account for approximately .1 percent of school-age students identified in the United States as having a disability (Hardman, 2013, p. 322).”

It cannot seem to be stressed enough that empathy, understanding and compassion—a real and honest appraisal and understanding—should be fully employed by us clinicians who attempt to win the confidence of a deaf family—or any low-incidence exceptionality family—so that the medical aspects can be introduced with less threat and with less fear for the family to be able to consider.

References
Aronson, J. (Producer & Director). (2006). Sound and fury: Six years later [Documentary].    United States: Filmakers Library. Retrieved from http://flon.alexanderstreet.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/View/1650486 and http://search.alexanderstreet.com.libproxy.edmc.edu/view/work/1785113
​

Hardman, M. L. (2013). Human Exceptionality: School, Community, and Family, 11th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version].  Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9781285594972

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