{"id":119,"date":"2010-01-14T08:31:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T08:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html"},"modified":"2010-01-14T08:31:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T08:31:00","slug":"what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html","title":{"rendered":"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m part of a local network of parents of kids with Down syndrome, and we had a doctor from the Trisomy 21 Clinic at the Children&#8217;s Hospital of Philadelphia come to speak to us last night. She answered questions about potty training and aggressive behavior and communication and school inclusion. At the end of the night, I asked her how much communication they have with other doctors at the hospital. That is to say, how much influence does she have over the way her fellow physician&#8217;s view children with Down syndrome?<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She said something like, &#8220;Many of my colleagues believe that if you don&#8217;t have an IQ of 130 or greater, your life is not worth living.&#8221;  (An IQ of 100 is normal, by the way, 130 is genius. Most kids with Down syndrome fall at the very low end of normal, or the high end of what is considered mental retardation, that is to say 60-80.)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We had an encounter a few months ago with some medical students who, to some degree, felt the same way. And I recently wrote an essay about that encounter that was published in the most current issue of the Christian Century. I hope you&#8217;ll take a look: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christiancentury.org\/article.lasso?id=8111\">An Hour With Penny<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m part of a local network of parents of kids with Down syndrome, and we had a doctor from the Trisomy 21 Clinic at the Children&#8217;s Hospital of Philadelphia come to speak to us last night. She answered questions about potty training and aggressive behavior and communication and school inclusion. At the end of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m part of a local network of parents of kids with Down syndrome, and we had a doctor from the Trisomy 21 Clinic at the Children&#8217;s Hospital of Philadelphia come to speak to us last night. She answered questions about potty training and aggressive behavior and communication and school inclusion. At the end of the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-14T08:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome? - Thin Places","og_description":"I&#8217;m part of a local network of parents of kids with Down syndrome, and we had a doctor from the Trisomy 21 Clinic at the Children&#8217;s Hospital of Philadelphia come to speak to us last night. She answered questions about potty training and aggressive behavior and communication and school inclusion. At the end of the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-01-14T08:31:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html","name":"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-01-14T08:31:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-14T08:31:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/01\/what-do-medical-students-think-of-down-syndrome.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What do Medical Students think of Down Syndrome?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}