I worked with mentally handicapped kids a lot as an educator when I was younger (albeit in a different country). This wonderful article captures perfectly how, in the right environment, children with Down Syndrome can blossom, but how hard it can be for them as adults once society & red tape & bureaucracy all come into play. (I also worked with children who had Down Syndrome and had not grown up in the right environment- think abusive/dead/incarcerated/etc. parents. That got very depressing very fast, and I'm not sure I could do it again).<p>I think this also highlights how the increasingly geographically fragmented familial unit is problematic: in a culture where several generations of the same family lives under the same roof, the situation wouldn't be as dire. However, in our culture it is typical to have only small portions of a family living together, and for children to move away and live on their own, potentially hundreds of miles away. No situation is perfect, of course - but it's still something to ponder (and it affects other social groups as well, for instance the elderly).<p>There was a wonderful American Life a while back on a similar topic, about a mother dealing with her adult son who had a mental disability (can't remember if it was autism or Down), and fearing for what would happen once she passed away. Can't find it right now; will edit this post if I do.
I was afraid that this would be a tacky post hinging around hiring a guy solely because of his disability (i.e., charity) and instead it's a really thoughtful, insightful post about what it's like as a father of a young man with a disability and how hard it can be for people with disabilities to get hired.<p>One thing I wonder (and I don't know if the author comes here): is there no Office of Vocational Rehabilitation or something similar? The author mentions Penn State and I know Pennsylvania has an OVR, even though it can be very hard to communicate with them sometimes.<p>I had this problem when I was younger and had just gotten a cochlear implant. I always fretted about whether or not I would be able to get a job somewhere since I couldn't hear in moderately noisy environments (think fast food, movie theaters), couldn't use the telephone, and sometimes had difficulty understanding people I'd never met before. It was really scary thinking that I would have to live with my mother for the rest of my life, unable to get a job.<p>Being rejected from all of the entry-level jobs I applied to at the time only made my fears worse.<p>I found some good jobs and have a great one now, but I feel for this young man.
I barely made it through this article. After the 10th minute of pushing through my tears to read, I had to resolve that nothing would stop me.<p>On HN we dream big. And we all agree that we can dream big and maybe hit it big. Imagine what it feels like to realize at a young age that you DONT get to go after your dreams because you are missing the tools. Imagine what it feels like to believe something is wrong with you because you talk to yourself sometimes. Now get back to starting your company.<p>And yet, you can be happy to commute, to have co workers, to have some freedom from our parents.
I remember when I worked in an auto-industry factory (as part of my training) in Japan, we wore caps with colored bands that denoted rank/category. New employees were dark blue. Equipment/facility maintenance people wore yellow bands. "Management" inside the factory, as well as the white-collar employees had light blue. Outside guests wore red.<p>Amidst this, workers with disabilities wore caps with green bands. Many were hearing impaired, but there were some with leg issues and others with some form of mental illnesses.<p>This kind of categorization perhaps wouldn't fly in the States, but it seemed to aid the company's goal of having 5% of their factory workforce composed of people with various forms of disability (iirc).<p>As knowledge workers, it's easy for us to dismiss bluecollar positions like these, but working at a enormous Toyota group company, receiving a great deal of training and a respectable wage (you can make quite a bit with overtime), and being part of something that produces countless goods into the world is a pretty good deal for people in a country where it's not illegal for potential employers to ask about your existing medical conditions during the interview process.
Not downs, but we had a guy with a pretty bad speech impediment interview with us a while back. He had a well controlled stutter which resulted in pauses of 10s+. The guy was awesome (better than the average across our team) and had wonderful written communication skills. That's all we need as we email each other all day (we're a very disparate team). Unfortunately my asshat boss decided that he wasn't suitable for the position due to a number of made up concerns and vetoed our acceptance.<p>Pisses me off every time I think about it but that's how a lot of companies operate.
In Germany another young man with Down syndrome is currently much talked and written about. It is about eleven year old Henri who took part in a model experiment to attended regular school classes.<p>Now that some of his classmates are about to go to high school, his parents try to get him also into high school.
Their reasoning is that it would be cruel and against the idea of the original experiment to separate him from his friends again. They don't argue that does not have the abilities to graduate. The whole argument is if a high schools should accept someone for other reasons than graduating.<p>The following article is not very good, but the only one I could find in English:<p><a href="http://international.sueddeutsche.de/post/82661462300/a-touch-of-elitism-in-german-school-policy-for-the" rel="nofollow">http://international.sueddeutsche.de/post/82661462300/a-touc...</a><p>Much better one, but in German:<p><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/junge-mit-down-syndrom-henri-darf-nicht-aufs-gymnasium-wechseln-a-969836.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/schulspiegel/junge-mit-down-syndrom-he...</a>
I took french class with Jamie back in high school. He is a great guy, and works incredibly hard. I loved working in groups with him; his french was much better than mine.
Would something like a google glass app, or another semi-automated assistant work for augmenting his capabilities?<p>Sounds like he's totally motivated and capable to do e.g. the janitorial work, but his capability needs to be paired with intensive supervision. Could that supervision be implemented as wearable interactive instruction or cheat-sheets?
I have a strong sense that online work - on CrowdFlower, Mechanical Turk, or Elance - could be the path forward for someone like Jaime. Please do note: I work for CrowdFlower.<p>The beauty of online work is its promise of operating as a meritocracy. Access to the labor market is not about who you know, or how you appear, but about your ability to perform. Everything about Jaime, from his diligence to his incredible cataloguing memory, struck me as a perfect fit for the type of work that's readily available online: data collection, cleaning and labeling.<p>Even better, this type of work is going to become a larger and larger part of labor market as the machine learning field grows and the need for clean training data grows along with it.
I enjoyed reading this article, strangely enough by Aljazeera. That did made me want to know how a child like this would grow up in the Middle East. I found this: <a href="http://media-dis-n-dat.blogspot.nl/2009/03/saudi-mother-tries-to-break-silence.html" rel="nofollow">http://media-dis-n-dat.blogspot.nl/2009/03/saudi-mother-trie...</a>
If anyone is interested in a good film about a young man with Down Syndrome and how he gets on in life (work and love), check out the Spanish film Yo Tambien (Me Too). Here's the trailer, with subs.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3CfN3Rrvi4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3CfN3Rrvi4</a>
I really respect the humanity with which this story is told; kudos to the dad, and Jamie, of course. This heartfelt story makes you realize how little we know about people with mental handicaps and the struggles they face, even is the best of circumstances. It only saddens me to think that similar children/young adults/adults out there, do not have the access to some of these programs because of they do not have such resourceful parents.
Very interesting and moving article. I was surprised by his incredible self-awareness and self-acceptance. Now it makes me wonder about all the reasons why you can't fit in our busier-than-ever society. Why bother trying joining the workforce when it's already broken for most of us? Maybe he could learn to grow his own food, learn to make things at his own pace and become more 'independent' while doing so?
Maybe in Taxonomy? Taxonomists are scientists who can catalogue specimens of animals and plants into species, and argue about what is a species and what is two species.<p>However, he might be quite good at learning to classify specimens and classifying them. Not in the more academic/scientific role, but it would be valuable work. He might even be able to discover things about taxonomy nobody else has found yet.
Reminds me of these videos which I think HN will enjoy. Meet Anthony -> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv5nzgrYBIQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv5nzgrYBIQ</a> and Tim's Place -> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6He0FWoFj0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6He0FWoFj0</a>
very touching young story - I bet this kid is a lot of fun to work with. The fact that he was on time every day for 6 months probably whips all the other employees into shape from an HR perspective. "If this kid can be on time and take the bus, then so can you."
I found this article disturbing.<p>Why are we forcing developmentally disabled people -- or anyone, for that matter -- to get jobs? Is there a dire shortage of low-skilled labor that I'm not aware of?<p>"Whenever we talked about his employment prospects after the age of 21, we reminded Jamie that he did not want to live a life of watching YouTube, wrestling videos and Beatles Anthology DVDs in the basement."<p>Would there have been anything wrong with watching YouTube videos all day if Jamie's father had never <i>told</i> him that it was wrong?<p>And if the purpose of sheltered workshops is to provide busy work for developmentally disabled people, why should it matter whether they pay below minimum wage?