(Sigh) I just realized the other day that B.A.D.D. is coming up…

[capri0mni]

And I'm not sure my heart is into doing it this year... For one thing, I'm still struggling with that Sword and Laser anthology story (The deadline is May 15; I'm working on it... hope to have a rough draft done by the end of tomorrow).

For another thing, I'd been planning, if I do write something for Blogging Against Disability Day, to put up a YouTube version... and I'm hating the new version of Windows MovieMaker -- they've taken out all my favorite title animations, and made the animations that remain inflexible, so you can't slow down the movement of the words to match the length of the clip. On the other hand, they've added new transitions and effects, and also a "pan" feature, so you can move over a single image... so maybe I could still make something vaguely interesting, and not absolutely fugly.

Anyway, if I do write something, it will either be:

1) a "rant" about the pernicious belief in the medical community that CP = mental retardation (which is hard because that so often comes across as "being intellectually disabled is being subhuman" which is a lie... but being misdiagnosed as ID is still horrible)

or

2) something about storytelling and that Disability Test I came up with, and why it's important.

And May 1 is coming up fast, and I have to decide even faster... Sigh.

Comments

[pebblerocker]

I misread that as a "pain" feature, which seems appropriate - new features on software, when what you want is to have the old features that worked well, really are a pain.

[capri0mni]

Indeed so! They've also stripped the sound recorder of the ability to edit the sound and listen to it before you save it... I mean: whut?

[smw]

Oh, damn, I hoped to write a short story for B.A.D.D., but I'm still stuck on the one for the anthology, and I've got an article to write, three articles to edit, twenty pages worth of final paper on my plate... Goodness, but my to-do list bulked up in the last couple of days.

My grousing aside, I think (1) is perfectly possible if one makes the distinction between being intellectually disabled and being diagnosed as such—it seems to me that all the horror flows from the second and how society/the medical establishment responds, yes? That being said, either of your topics would be of interest to me.

[capri0mni]

Regarding (1), it really is about misdiagnosis as much as anything – of not recognizing the capabilities that people do have for what they are. It would be as if doctors and educators decided that all people with Down's syndrome had to stay in wheelchairs for their own safety because they couldn't explain intellectually how velocity and physical balance work, so that someone who might be, if given the chance, really super athletic would never get the chance to find that out. And that's the real tragedy.

I'm embarrassed to say (well, not to say it , but…) That I used to be someone who would make the argument "well, at least I am not retarded ." But I like to think I've matured; and now I think of intellectual disability as not all that different from mobility impairment: getting from place to place is not all that different from getting from idea to idea – as long as extra time, and little accommodation is given.


My rant on the subject really centers around that one statistic I've seen quoted on every single webpage I've read about cerebral palsy: "between 30% and 50% of all children with cerebral palsy have some level of mental retardation." such scare statistic, and if you look at it closely you'll see how full of lazy and fuzzy thinking it is. And yet, every time I questioned those numbers, I've been accused of bias because I have cerebral palsy, and therefore discounting the results of "scientific studies." But even acknowledging that every one of those tests and surveys were perfectly accurate, without the smidge of error, what difference would it make in pamphlets written for parents and teachers ifthat factoid read: "between 50% and 70% of children with cerebral palsy have normal or, above normal, intelligence."?