I have an aunt with Downs syndrome, I also work with children with complex special needs, including downs syndrome. Im a speech & language therapist so obviously more from that perspective but I do know quite a lot about child development with Downs syndrome. I also know that thanks to better early therapy, and more respect in general, children with downs syndrome achieve more and more every year. its now quite realistic to assume your child will do GCSEs. Many young adults with Downs syndrome hold down jobs and live relatively independently (usually with support from parents, but who doesnt!) Things are really changing. When my aunt was born my grandmother was told that she would never walk or talk, that there was no point doing anything with her. My grandmother will now admit that she emotionally negleted her, which has contributed to a lot of her problems as an adult. For example her language skills are a lot worse than most people with Downs syndrome, but she was rarely spoken to as a pre-schooler.
These days there is a lot of research and we now understand that children with down syndrome need more input than your average child, for example they might need to hear a word twice the amount of times before they learn it, they can learn it, and giving the right 'therapy' in the early years really pays off, enables them to go to mainstream school, socialise, and lead very happy lives.
Im rambling a bit, but the point I want to make is that you never know what your child's future holds, and a lot of the adults with downs syndrome these days had very substandard life opportunities and education, so we can expect more from the next generation, and hopefully the next after that too. xxx
