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I am re posting because I will be writing another post related to this topic later this week.
Talking and understanding are not mutually exclusive
Lets say a genius who spoke Latin were to come to the United States. Now lets just say for the sake of the argument that there was no one else who spoke Latin. Is the genius still a genius. Of course many people would say he just needs needs to learn English. Well what if there was a person who could not speak at all and had no device, could he be a genius?
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It angers me as a person living with a speech delay when I hear someone who has no speech due to disabilities, and do not have any device and are placed as limited intellectual ability. It really angers me because the person does not have a opportunity to prove there intelligence one way or the other. Why am I pissed off let me tell you my story.
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| bookgal princess and az We were so cute |
I was born September 1991 a month prematurely resulting in mild Cerebral Palsy. As a newborn I could not suck from a bottle to well a feeding tube was placed though my throat so I could eat. When my parents took me home I had a hard time breast feeding and my mom had to pump her milk out and put it in a bottle. My muscles were soo weak that feeding took forever.
When I was a toddler I had difficulty communicating. I leaned sign langue to communicate. I remember saying and signing cracker in the kitchen. Using signing I was able to express my wants and needs until my speech came along.
With me and my speech impairment repeating words is frustrating especially when no one understands me. I hear myself speaking clearly, My mind makes the ideas and the words that come out are fuzzy. I remember saying answers in class being told I was wrong and someone said the same thing and got it right. That means that I got the answer right.
Now for me I have a voice . Its not the best but its a voice. As frustrated as I must feel it must be ten times more frustrating for people without a voice. I feel for those people and can not igmane being inside and not having a way to communicate and because of not being able to communicate getting labeled as worthless. Having the school system write you off being isolated from your peers. Being talked to in a high pitch voice every day when you are not a kid. Then because of your physical limitations being labeled as being as smart as a toddler. That is not fair nor is it right. I know all about history understand Spanish and english have a talent for writing can play chess yet I can not say the L R K G sound easily. Does that me not smart no. Now igmane if i could not talk or had a device yes I would not be able to write read and play chess not because I was not smart but because i had not had the opportunities to learn. If you are reading this and have a child who can not communicate my advice is to go to the ends of the earth for your kid, Buy the i pads the dynvoxs help your child find their voice. If your the parent or know someone whose older who can not communicate do the same thing. The sooner you get it the better but do not give up on an older person in fact you need to get the information them faster to make up for loss time. In the meantime continue talking to the person as would with a person as there chronological age. ( So talk to a baby like a baby
All people deserve a chance to connect with others. It does not matter how smart they are everyone wants to connect with others. Think about it this way if the person is said to have an intellectual disability and you talk to them about stuff that is to hard for them then they it will be to hard, but if the child is smart but has not fond their voice they will observe it like a sponge. Please remember speech is very complex and hard but the spoken word is the end result. The process may still be in place.
