Down Syndrome people better social skills than AS people?

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Tawaki
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17 Jul 2014, 8:51 am

@qawer

We have a neighbor who has a DS child and a ASD child. Both diagnosis have their own unique challenges.

If we are talking about being in the general public, she said people judge her much less with her DS daughter. Her DD can have the mother of all melt downs, and she never gets thr stink eye or those *what the hell is wrong with that kid glares*. With her son, she feels under the gun all the time.

Compare and contrast..

Her DS child has sensory issues. We were at an ice cream store and DD dumped her cone all down the front of herself. Sticky! She has a meltdown. People came running with wet napkins, offering to help clean up and buy her another cone. Her son as done the same thing.

*crickets*

No help offered. Everyone sort of just looks. The silence is deafening.

I think ASD can be just as handicapping as DS. My friend's DD can have the mother of all meltdowns in public, and people give her and her mother much less grief over it. Her son can have the same intensity of a meltdown, and the looks and judging are horrible.

I think society goes out of it's way now to help people who look disabled. I've known kids with ADHD/RAD or ODD and they get judged all the time. They don't *look* disabled, so people expect a certain amount of good behavior from them. That's not fair.



Callista
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17 Jul 2014, 9:12 am

qawer wrote:
Again this seeming "fact" about the difference in social skills makes me wonder whether AS is just as big a disability as DS.
Yup. For many people with AS, it absolutely is. Now, the challenges will be very different from person to person, and some people with AS will be very independent just like some people with DS will be very independent; however, in terms of a functioning level scale like the GAF measure, people with AS definitely overlap with DS in terms of the severity of impairment.

But we can't jump from that and say that the impairments must be of the same type. One's a visible disability, the other invisible; one requires no intellectual disability, the other practically always causes ID; one has social strengths and the other social weaknesses.

Still--both groups do have developmental disabilities, and it would be very smart of us to hook up with ID self-advocates, since we need many of the same adjustments to give us access to equal rights. With opposite strengths, perhaps we could make each other stronger, too... we do their academics, they do our social stuff, we work together and make people listen to us when we say we're all human beings who deserve to be respected.


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Joe90
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17 Jul 2014, 11:27 am

Callista wrote:
They do have some social impairments. But that is just the result of a general intellectual disability, and they are often less impaired in socializing than they are at school. So, yeah, it's often a comparative strength.

But let's not forget that 25% of Down's people also have autism. So they have social skills deficits just like we do.

The other 75%, I would say, depending on the person, on average probably do better socially than autistics do. But remember how diverse both DS and autism is. There will be a lot of overlap. Some DS people have really serious social skills problems, and some autistics are only slightly impaired, socially.

Because of that diversity, I don't think it is useful to make predictions about social skills based on whether a person is DS or autistic. You might be able to guess better than chance, but it wouldn't be nearly accurate enough to justify actually making any assumptions about a person. It would be better to meet them and observe them or just ask directly.

I don't know if DS people get annoyed when others assume they are socially wonderful and charming and innocent and all of that. It's kind of a patronizing stereotype and I think I'd be annoyed by it if that were me.


I agree with this.
I have met quite a lot of people with Down's in my life, and they all seemed socially awkward in their own way.


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K_Kelly
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19 Jul 2014, 10:41 am

Why are an overwhelming amount of cases of DS aborted instead of cutting their little bundle of joy some slack by parents huh? It's an obsolete idea.

Off-topic, but being childlike as an adult can be a cultural thing too, like in some parts of Asia.



bleh12345
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27 Jul 2014, 2:04 am

I had a coworker with DS years ago. She was always happy and respectful. People tried to treat her like a baby, though. She wanted a boyfriend and had a crush. He also had DS. No one even agreed that she should ever kiss a boy. She knew what sex was I think, but everyone kept saying how it was "in her best interest" not to do this or that. Yet, she was a better worker than many who have worked there. She would talk to me about her crush (they technically were in a relationship) and I was the only one who wouldn't lecture her.

I have no idea what other people with DS go through, but I hope people remember they are human just like us.



Jensen
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27 Jul 2014, 7:12 am

qawer wrote:
HarmonySeptember wrote:
From what I have seen, they appear to love people. I cannot think of any time I have seen a person with Downs Syndrome say negative things about another person. They never even appear to think bad about others.


True, I have experienced that from more than one documentary on Down's Syndrome.

The sad truth is, however, that not being able to think badly about others (in terms of skills and abilities) is an obvious manifestation of lack of social skills!

But for that same reason they appear very likable, indeed!
True.
I have worked in an institution for high functioning people with Downs Syndrome and
I never heard them speak badly about others.They were actually very caring towards each other.


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Protector88
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27 Jul 2014, 11:24 am

What I find most notably is that most things you see about DS are the happy things. My experience is that people with DS are depressed often and don't find life really that fun as they make it seem in some documentaries. I have heard this also from someone who works with DS people and have experience it myself. They often know they are treated like a kid and aren't taken seriously. People just expect them to be happy and cheerful and that is why they act like that. When all the doors are closed behind them and they are at home things are not so cheerful and happy.

The story about the mother with both a kid with ASD and DS is horrible. I did not know it was that severe. Thanks for sharing that Tawaki! I have seen it happen once with a kid with ADHD and a different kid with ASD. One kid was screaming and the other as well and the kid with ASD got a lecture and the other kid was screaming like a slaughtered pig next to them. So unfair and just illogical.

I do see people who have a clearly visible disability get bullied and mistreated often so DS is something special I think. The media has given a lot of attention to them and autism and other problems hardly get any attention.