One thing I hear time and again is how people with Down’s Syndrome (and apparently no other disorder/difference/condition) are always “HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY!” or “Bright rays of sunlight.”
Where did this weird belief come from? Was it from the past when people thought the developmentally disabled were “pure innocents” and childlike? But even children aren’t happy 24/7.
By the same people who brought you “special” as a synonym for crippled or retarded.
Anyone who is happier than me is “Happy”. It doesn’t mean they are happy all the time. It is a relative thing.
I’ve heard this from people who work with the disabled; apparently, it really is a specific effect in the makeup of Down’s patients, that they are more comfortable with the world, themselves, and events. They aren’t in total glee all the time, but they’re less troubled. They have fewer behavioral difficulties such as panics, rages, and so on.
Think of it as roughly like a natural lobotomy.
This is not a relic of the past, it’s a very real, probably subconscious, belief that many people have re people with disabilities. I experience this phenomenon on a regular basis and i have no mental disability. I use a wheelchair.
I am not sure if Aspergers Syndrome combined with Moderate Depression is a disability.
Maybe it is my character.
Maybe it is a talent.
Maybe what is your character/talent? 
I think sometimes people who advocate for the disabled go overboard on positives in an attempt to underplay or outweigh the negatives. There’s also the phenomena of the “Hallmark Handicapped” where it’s all about triumphing over adversity and doing better and better without mentioning or heavily glossing over the bad stuff that never goes away.
Yes, and if the disabled person *isn’t * always smiles and sunshine, it’s because they are bitter because of their disability.
Considering how often they also have mental illnesses and behavioral issues, this is utter bullshit; a great many of our center’s clients are folks with down syndrome and depression (they’re unfortunately prone to a severe form of depression with psychotic features), “challenging behavior” etc. It’s disappointing you’ve heard it from professionals rather than well-intentioned idiots.
Children with Down syndrome do demonstrate a marked difference from some other developmentally disabled children in that they are characteristically very affectionate, particularly with family members, but sometimes with strangers as well. Compared to an autistic child, who might not like being touched, and might have trouble connecting with other people, a Down syndrome child who enjoys hugging his parents and regularly tells them he loves them can seem much happier and more like a ray of sunshine.
Back when the “mentally retarded” label lumped children on the autism spectrum together with Down syndome children, the Down syndrome children stood out because they were generally more skilled at social interaction, which made them seem sweeter and happier.
Of course this didn’t mean that Down syndrome children (and adults) don’t experience the full range of emotions, including depression. But I think it does help to explain the myth of the sweet, loving, happy Down syndrome child.
Aspie way of thinking. Being less influenced by society then other people.
NOTE: I’m going to speak in generalizations after working with hundreds of developmentally disabled people. Exceptions always occur.
I’ve worked with lots of people with disabilities. Among people with severe retardation*, people with Down syndrome are noted for having fewer “behaviors.” They have little difficulty with transitions, and once they are potty trained (it may be when they are 8, but it happens), they rarely have accidents, etc., and they do seem to have empathy that is advanced for their general functioning. If a staff person is having a difficult day because of a lack of sleep, a personal problem, an illness in the offing, or whatever, and any client offers a pat on the back, or asks “Are you OK?” it is likely to be a client with Down Syndrome.
So they tend to be easy to work with compared to people with something like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, which, rather unfortunately, is a syndrome where empathy is almost entirely absent, even in high-functioning people. In people with FAS, somehow, the connections the lead to empathy get targeted early and often with FAS. I don’t know why, and I won’t speculate, but it’s very sad, because they weren’t the lowest functioning people we had, yet they pissed off everyone, including other clients, and the most long-suffering staff.
I don’t think people with DS are actually happier than normal people, but I think they have a lot of intuition, and sensitivity, that is* unimpaired relative to their intellects*, in many cases, so that the individual people are less troubled by things that upset many equally intellectually impaired people who get upset because they don’t understand what is happening around them, and just want information.
*With higher functioning people, you have lots of people who are retarded because of hypoxia, or some other birth injury, who also have a normal empathy response.
Well, unfortunately, there’s a connection between DS and Alzheimer’s. I have a friend, whose brother was a fairly high-functioning DS (he could be left alone, and could do chores like mowing the lawn, and could read, and would entertain himself with picture books), but developed AS around age 50, and went from very affectionate and happy-go-lucky, to cantankerous, and unable to be left alone, to later destructive of property. At first the doctor was reluctant to diagnose AS, until he saw family films of the brother, and how independent, and cooperative he had been. He also had affidavits from workshop attendants that the brother was extremely cooperative.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of DS people have depression, for two reasons. One is that a lot of adults are placed in programs way below their limits, and the other is that many of them are kept at home until their parents die, and then placed in residential settings, and forever associate the residential placement with losing their parents.
We always tried to encourage parents to place children independently between ages 18-25, and many did, but some insisted that no one could take care of their children as well as they could, and refused to think about a future when they weren’t there.
Oh god, it’s like the Happy Cancer Child (sometimes the Happy Cancer Adult). So incredibly bright and cheerful and noble! A blessing to all who encounter them!
May all of your Tims be Tiny!
I wonder if there’s some confirmation bias at play. The people with Down’s Syndrome the general public is likely to see are probably more on the “happy” side because they are probably higher functioning and thus able to live a full enriching life. The depressed and emotionally disturbed people with DS are likely kept indoors and/or institutionalized, so we don’t see or hear about them very often.
They’re only reporting what they observe; it isn’t a scientific survey. For one thing, one of my informants works in a “high-functioning” environment, and its possible that the most behaviorally troubled clients have already been disqualified from admission.
Nevertheless, I have at least three professionals who say that the “happiness” of Down’s patients is observed fact.
It doesn’t mean that none of them have problems with depression or psychosis, only that fewer of them do, compared to the general population.
That would require a proper scientific study… Has one been performed?
It’s one thing to suppose that somebody in a wheelchair must also have a brain that is different. I know this happens all the time, and it’s idiotic.
But it’s not a priori idiotic that Down’s might be associated with personality traits. I mean, it’s an empirical question, and it may be wrong, but it’s not an inherently silly idea in the same way.
You hear it from anti-abortion people pretty regularly. Here in Ohio, there’s pressure to outlaw having an abortion because the child will have Down syndrome. Here’s a NYT article with a quote for example -
By treating Down syndrome as a lucky chance, rather than a life-changing difficulty, they can chip away at womens’ right to get abortions because of health problems with the fetus. It also forces women to try and justify their abortion to health providers - something they’re not currently required to do. But if they can implement this, then they can start chipping away at other reasons.
OK; I want to clarify what I said earlier, just in case I was misunderstood as saying that DS people are extra-happy. They do tend to be less difficult than other developmentally disabled people, and it may be because DS is a mosaic syndrome in many cases, so some people have cognitive deficits that effect them in school, so the seem very bad, but may not touch whatever part of their brain is responsible for empathy or social skills. The brain is very complex, and DS is unusual in its expression, so who knows? “DS people are extra-happy” is too simple a summation of a very complex process.