Girl With Down Syndrome to Light State Tree
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver will kick-off the holiday season
with the 77th annual State Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the West Steps of the
State Capitol on Tuesday, December 9, 2008.
This is the 26th year that a child with a developmental disability will participate in the ceremony.
During the ceremony, eight year-old Michaela, who has Down Syndrome, will present the
governor with one of nearly 1,500 ornaments handcrafted by individuals with developmental
disabilities statewide. Michaela receives services coordinated by the Eastern Los Angeles
Regional Center and funded by the state Department of Developmental Services. In front of more
than 2,000 spectators and broadcast TV cameras, Michaela will press the switch to light up the
6,500 low-wattage lights that decorate the tree.
Michaela Tritch, of the Los Angeles community of Eagle Rock, has been selected to participate in the 2008 State Capitol Tree Lighting Ceremony on Dec. 9. Representing the more than 230,000 children and adults served by the Department of Developmental Services, Michaela will help the governor light the tree, decorated with 1,500 ornaments created by Californians with
developmental disabilities.
Described by her sister, Amanda as “truly the fruits of the spirit,” Michaela will turn 9 years old just days before Christmas. The youngster, who has Down Syndrome, has received services from the Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center since she was three months old. Michaela is a third grader at
Delevan Drive Elementary School. She adores gymnastics – especially the trampoline - and is active in an equestrian program, where she has learned to stand on the horse and can perform other fun stunts. Her parents, Jeffrey and Rhonda Tritch, say the program has helped with her balance, posture, strength and even her speech. In addition, Michaela loves playing soccer with her sister,
Brittany, and has become an avid member of the American Youth Soccer Organization’s Region 13 VIP team. She is equally enthusiastic about reading Curious George and Sponge Bob books with her Dad, Jeffrey, and singing along to music in the family car.
“She is the heart and soul of our family,” said her mother. “She seems to know when
you need a hug and so just comes up and gives you one.”
Ausralia Lets Family Stay
excerpted from cnn.com
Australia's immigration minister has granted permanent residency to a German family whose application was twice denied because their 13-year-old son's Down syndrome was deemed a drain on the country's health system.
Bernhard and Isabella Moeller and their son Lukas moved to Australia from Germany two years ago. The case provoked widespread public outrage, putting pressure on Immigration Minister Chris Evans to intervene. On Wednesday, November 26, Evans ruled that the Moeller family was making a "valuable contribution" to their local community and that they would be allowed to stay on in Australia once their temporary visa expires in March 2010.
Bernhard Moeller, a doctor, moved his family to Horsham in western Victoria two years ago to fill a doctor shortage. He is the only internal medicine specialist serving 20,000 people in the area.
"Dr. Moeller is providing a much needed service in the area, the family have integrated very well and they have substantial community support," Evans told the Senate on Wednesday.
Moeller told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a CNN affiliate, that waiting for the news has been stressful. "But now I am really happy," he said. "We've been jumping for joy."
The family's application was first denied by the Immigration Department which cited the cost to the government in caring for Moeller's son, Luke. On Tuesday, the Migration Review Tribunal upheld the department's decision -- prompting Evans to intervene.
Down syndrome, a genetic defect, causes intellectual disabilities and other difficulties. But whereas the average life expectancy for a person with Down syndrome was 9 years in the 1920s, today he or she can live up to 60 years. Children with the condition are integrated into the schooling system, and adults are able to live by themselves.
"It has been really stressful, especially not knowing what will happen; what our future will look like," Moeller told ABC. "I was very tired yesterday when I got this news about the refusal from the tribunal and I was thinking, 'Is it really worthwhile?'" Moeller said Lukas was aware of the setbacks but did not understand the full impact of it. "We kept the bad things away from him," he said. "He was confident that his dad will fix it for him."
Evans, the immigration minister, told the Senate that he has contacted regional leaders to encourage them to support a regulation change that will allow the government to waive the health requirements of permanent visa applicants in certain situations.
Moeller agrees. "It has to be set up more flexible," he said. "Because I don't want more people to have such an experience like I had."
Homecoming Queen Crowned
excerpted from Dallas Morning News
Michael Young
Never has the selection of a homecoming queen sent so many tears falling so freely.
Kristin Pass, an 18-year-old senior with Down syndrome, became Aledo High School's homecoming queen Friday, October 10, to a joyous standing ovation and the flutter of a thousand tissues on a remarkable night for an amazing young woman.
Her grandfather, Dr. David Campbell of Corsicana, escorted her onto the field and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as Kristin joined eight other young women in the Homecoming Court to await the results of the vote, cast by the 360-plus members of Aledo High's senior class. Then came the announcement ... and pandemonium.
"Oh my gosh! I was sitting in the student section and everyone stood up, crying and cheering for Kristin," said longtime friend and fellow senior Meaghan Geary, 17, who first met Kristin in the third grade. "It was great!"
Carolyn Pass stood at the edge of the football field, taking pictures of her daughter and friends' daughter’s in the court, when the stadium erupted. "It's just something you can't even imagine," she said. "And afterward, everyone was just running down to her, congratulating her. And the other girls in the court, they're all just beautiful girls, inside and out." Ms. Pass said she spoke later with a friend. "She said the only mistake anyone made was not handing out crying towels."
The vote may have been a surprise, but no one who knows Kristin doubts her popularity, her mother said. "Kristin has a lot of friends – she likes everyone. It doesn't matter if you're tall or short, pretty, not pretty, smart, not smart – she likes everybody. She has great friends. And Aledo is a great community."
Kristin pronounced the evening "exciting" and "awesome." She was so thrilled, her mother said, that she took her crown to bed with her. "She's real proud of it," her friend Meaghan added.
Kristin and her family, including sister Kendall, now a freshman, moved to Aledo when Kristin was in the third grade. She was embraced by the people in town through good times and bad, including the death of her dad, J.T., two years ago. "We've always had great experiences here," her mom said. "We've been blessed, and I think Kristin brings a lot of blessings to the people she knows."
Her selection as homecoming queen was a wonderful surprise. But Meaghan seemed to have an inkling that it could happen. "Everyone loves Kristin," she said, "and I didn't know for sure, but in class everyone was like, 'Who are you voting for?' and everybody was like, 'Vote for Kristin, she's so good.' " Kristin doesn't care what's on the outside, Meaghan said. She's friends with everyone, and everyone admires that. "She's the person we all want to be," Meaghan said.
Iraq's Children With Down Syndrome
excerpted from islamonline.net
Afif Sarhan
Like thousands of Iraqi children who are suffering from the Down syndrome, Younnis Mohammad is tormented by discrimination and the lack of support. "We aren’t monsters. People look at us as if we were from another planet and are afraid to stay by our side," he said with a voice full of bitterness. "I want to share with other children the same hopes they have and live in an environment that sees us as children with some health problems and not ogres." Mohammad is one of thousands of children estimated to be suffering from Down syndrome, a chromosomal disorder caused by the presence of an extra 21st chromosome.
"I'm shy to go out carrying my daughter with me," says Um Zeinab. "People talk about her and I feel very bad because I feel that I wasn't able to give birth to a healthy person," she adds in tears. "I don't have money to pay for a treatment and at least inside my home she won't be pointed as a monster."
Activists regret that Down syndrome children are suffering from lack of care by both the government and locals. "We constantly receive visits from journalists, aid workers and even government officials who leave our place promising help but very few of them do it," said Sahira Abdul Lattif, head of the Down's Syndrome Association (DSA). "When they send something, it isn't enough to cover the needs."
Abdul Lattif, who has a Down syndrome child herself, noted that these children need professional help. "Professionals like dentists, speech therapists, psychologists and neurologists are essential to the development of these children but they aren't available," she explained. "And when we can get someone to help us, it is just for one visit while they need a constant follow up."
The lack of aid has forced many care centers to reduce daily food quotas for the children. "We don't have choice here," regrets Nuria Sabah, the director of House of God's Angels. "We want to do a voluntary work but for that you need support that is inexistent. "I hope the government and big NGOs can feel our need and give more help because if the situation continues like this, we will be forced to close down and send these kids home where for sure they won't be able to stand up alone for long."
The government says it is planning future projects for Down syndrome children. "We know how important is to have a special care for all those children with Down syndrome," Health Ministry official Abeer Salam told IOL. "However, the ministry is suffering with lack of investments in many areas, especially in projects department but we are hoping that after provincial elections, the central government will give more support to social projects rather than involve only with politics."
And until that happens, Ali Hazeem Tareek, a Down syndrome child, continues to dream of a normal life. "I hope one day I will be able to walk in the streets and no one will keep looking at me as if I was an abnormal person," he said.
Prom King Goes to College
excerpted from cnn.com
Elizabeth Landau
Zach Wincet's mother, Marget, didn't know her son would have Down Syndrome until after he was born. "Sometimes you're scared as a parent, and you wonder if your child is going to be able to do this and this and this," Wincent said recently. "And you know what? You just go out and try it, and you live each day at a time, and you celebrate all the great things that happen."
Wincent's own son Zach, now 19, also has Down syndrome. But the genetic disorder, which causes intellectual disabilities and other difficulties, has not prevented "Zach Attack" from enrolling in community college, climbing the Great Wall of China, coaching hockey games or becoming Prom king in high school.
Growing up, some children were kind to him, but other kids in the neighborhood made fun of her son, Wincent said. She believes that this came from lack of understanding of disabilities. She would tell these children that her son is a person just as they are and would follow up with phone calls to their parents. Zach's adopted sister Zoe, now 14, stands up for him too, Wincent said.
"That's a really important role that families play in society: helping everybody else understand that everyone has feelings; everyone has a right to belong; everyone has to be accepted. You don't have to be his friend, but he sure deserves respect just like everyone else," Wincent said.
She credits the teachers who were "out-of-the-box thinkers" for helping her son in school. Sometimes he needed a simple intervention to make school easier for him: For instance, in a middle-school science class, he just needed someone to retype the worksheets in a larger font because he reads slowly and has visual problems, she said.
In high school, Zach became good friends with kids on the ice hockey team and became an assistant coach his junior year. He will again coach the alumni game in December, when college-age graduates return to the school to play against the varsity team. "I have to get them in shape," he said. "I have a huge, huge hockey family."
These days, Zach attends a special-needs program at Elgin Community College and lives at home. His mother said she hopes that after the two-year program, he will be able to attend another school and live on a college campus. He also works at Target, supporting the cashiers. Although some students with special needs get placed in quiet office jobs, Zach loves people and activity, and Marget thought he would enjoy the job.
One of Zach's dreams is to become a dancer in Disney's "High School Musical" franchise. He performed in a local production, and now he's planning to submit a video for a Disney-sponsored fan contest. "It's not about winning or losing. Just have fun," he said.
University of Denver to Study Education of Children with Down Syndrome
excerpted from CBS News
Oliver Mason is nearly 5 years old, he can sign and knows his letters, but he doesn't talk like other children his age. That worries his mom Marian Mason. "We have a very big challenge in that he doesn't speak very much right now as he's getting closer to school age and we're terrified," said Marian Mason. Mason said she is always looking for resources to better educate her son - to develop his skills.
Karen Riley, assistant professor of Child, Family and School Psychology at the University of Denver, wants to help families like the Masons. She is the principal investigator in a first-of-its-kind study at the University of Denver that will look at two early literacy intervention approaches to educating children with Down Syndrome. "We're taking very young children and looking at two different approaches to reading, to literacy and language development," Riley said.
DU is looking for 60 children with Down Syndrome between the ages of 2-and-a-half to 5 years old. How well they learn will depend on how well their parents learn. Researchers will train the parents in two different methods of reading to their kids. "It's going to make the reading they do with their child more effective, more fun. The parents will feel like they're having a little bit more of an impact on their future learning," Riley said. "We're going to ask them to read with their children in this way for about 15 minutes a day." After 12 weeks and again at six months, scientists will measure whether it's made any difference. "We want to improve the educational strategies that are available for parents and families as well as interventionists, therapists etc. for kids that have Down Syndrome," said Riley.
If you would like to participate in this study, call Staci Jordan at 303-871-3465.
Film Director with Down Syndrome
excerpted from The World Today, an Australian radio program on abc.net.au
Its producers say it is the first Australian film to be written and directed by a person with Downs-syndrome. The filmmaker - Rachel High - is a graduate of a program where students with a disability attend lectures at mainstream universities. Her film premiered in an Adelaide cinema this week.
At 31, Rachel High has achieved her dream and hundreds of friends, well-wishers and drama colleagues turned out to an Adelaide cinema to see her ground-breaking first film - a 20 minute production with the poetic title of "Brown the Dirt" Rachel described it: “It's about animals. It is mainly a voice on how I believe in animals, you know. How I feel about them plus I am not a big fan on animal cruelty so I felt that should be addressed.”
The film features some of Adelaide's leading actors, but the star is a young man who, like Rachel High, has Down-syndrome. Cole Larsen is the head of Screen Production at Flinders University. He was instrumental in helping Rachel High make the film. After the premiere Larson commented on Ms. High’s film, “Brown the Dirt is similar to children's TV comedy with typically Australian characters, a bit of slapstick humour, some bumbling adults and a fantastic young Down-syndrome lead actor, Lorkin Hopper, who plays Craig who is a bit of an adventurer and a lover of animals.”
Rachel High's path to becoming a filmmaker really began five years ago when she was asked to join the Up the Hill project at Flinders University. Under the program she participated in three years worth of drama orientated classes. John Grantley is director of the project which is the only one of its kind at an Australian university. The Up the Hill project was set up to include people with intellectual disabilities in university and it allowed them to develop social networks.
Rachel High got her filmmaking break when she met Cole Larsen during her time at Flinders. He discovered she'd been writing scripts and stories in her spare time. Larson remembers meeting her: “And so we got talking about the stories and what she wanted to do and really her aspiration was to one day make her own film. So I just sort of said without thinking about anything, well what is stopping you making this film.”
Recently a German doctor in country Victoria was refused permanent residency in Australia because his son has Down-syndrome and would be a cost to the taxpayer. John Grantley says Rachel High's achievement flies in the face of such thinking. “When Rachel first started,” Grantly said, “I had found it difficult to get a peep out of her at all. She has grown in confidence, her self-esteem and just the competencies that she has shown because she has been able to now show what skills she has and she is her own person now.”
Inspirational Book
excerpted from Sacramento Bee
Jeremy McCarthy, a softspoken, bespectacled young man in black Nike shoes and a River Cats baseball cap, is juggling a very busy schedule. "I work here every day," he says, gesturing around McClatchy High School's teen center for youths with disabilities. He also teaches golf, takes college music classes and plays basketball and floor hockey. He travels, dances and, in his rare free moments, enjoys watching wrestling videos. His latest project? Role model.
McCarthy and other adults with Down syndrome are featured in a new book and video designed to inspire parents who have, or are expecting, children with the condition. The nonprofit Down Syndrome Information Alliance will be releasing "Dreams in Reality" at its annual Celebration of Hope fundraiser Monday in downtown Sacramento.
"Even in this day and age, the diagnosis is often presented as a tragedy," said Linn, who has a young son with the syndrome. "Parents are told that their child will never amount to anything. We are trying to show families of children with Down syndrome that there are some really cool role models out there."
Prospective parents so fear having a child with Down syndrome that about 90 percent of those who receive a prenatal diagnosis elect to abort their fetus, studies show. "That hasn't changed since the 1980s, as far as I know," said Dr. Joseph Pinter, associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Down Syndrome Clinic at Oregon Health and Science University. Yet, during that time, life expectancy for people with the condition has shot up; many stay healthy and reach their 60s or 70s, Pinter said.
"Not all of these people are going to accomplish a lot, but we need to give them the opportunities to accomplish everything they can," said Pinter. "I don't think you can give people too much hope. I have learned to stop telling people anything about limits."
The Sacramento nonprofit group's goal is to contact "every new and expectant parent" of a baby with Down syndrome, offering them the latest research information, emotional support and referrals, Linn said. The "Dreams in Reality" book and video will be included in a package distributed to each parent.
Living With Down Syndrome
video from cbsnews.com
Sarah Palin's fifth child was born with Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects 5,000 babies each year in the U.S. Palin's candidacy is being used to promote awareness. Katie Couric comments. The second video is Katie Couric's "Eye to Eye" in which she talks with parents of twins, one baby was born with Down Syndrome. They tell their story of when doctors first notified them of the disorder.
