Hypothetical: a pill to get rid of learning disabilities
Monday, February 25th, 2002
Here’s a hypothetical question:
If I offered you a pill and told you that it would eliminate your learning disability forever, would you take it?
In answering this question it would seem to me that other questions need to be asked and answered as well.
Note: This question and thread was moved from our old discussion board and reposted. The dates are accurate but the times are not. New posts in this thread from Jan 23, 2005 on will reflect correct times.
Heck no! I have experienced a heap of self worth since I’ve educated myself about my learning differences! And not only that, I have been able to help my children use their unique learning style to work FOR them not AGINST them in school. The key to managing your learning difference is to get educated!! There isn’t any extra curricular activity out there that will give you the feeling of self worth like being able to succeed in the classroom with out lifting an eyebrow! Who wants to drug up their body with artifical chemicals anyway?!
Joyce,
Well said. And I agree. I’ve learned to like my brain just as it is.
However, in this age of genetic engineering, it’s important to talk about what exactly a learning disability is: use a medical model of illness to talk about it and you might want to get rid of it. Use a social model and things look different.
We’re just coming out of years of looking at it through a medical lens and one of the heros in this revolution is Mel Levine. Here’s a link to his web site (which I find less useful than reading his books):
http://www.allkindsofminds.org
That is funny that you mentioned, Dr. Levine. I was going to recommend one of his books in another post that I made. I thoroughly enjoyed his book “A Mind at a Time” which helped me discover my children‚Äôs learning styles!
Thanks for responding.
I agree with Richard’s statement in Eugenics and Learning Disabilities that theoretical learning is too much pointed out in our societies (US and Germany as well).
The “category thinking” in society and education by defining only one norm for learning has a lot of negative affects regarding self esteem, self confidence and skill development. Instead of making able and encouraging kids to explore and develope their own skills and individual ways to learn, society (and school system) press them into this very narrow drawer specifying only one learning style. They feel as looser, being different, slow and not able for success just in that important phase of life when they need approval and encouragement the most. They are measured and valued by a “norm” that they can’t fulfill. That makes them feel that their personality is not valuable. School is not only wasted time for their own learning – it is contraproductive very often. A damage for life.
I believe that anyone who feels accepted as he/she is encouraged to find his/her own way of learning not measured by single norm attributes (such as learning styles) but by his/her entire personality can and will develop himself, find and enjoy his skills and be happy.
For me happiness and self esteem are the keys to feel valuable and be valuable: for me, others and society.
What is a pill good for? To repair a damage, to make me feel a damage is repaired, to bring me closer to norm.
Society takes the right to define LD as damage, out of norm. The expression “learning disabilities” itself shows it clearly. I think this is wrong and the source, that people are not able to explore their skills – or explore them much too late. At this point we all need repair! I suggest a pill for norm free thinking.
I’d take it …
Hello,
I am an LD student. I have ADD, and discrafia. I would never give up my chance to be LD!! It makes me different. After all if people like JFK, Einstien, and Jay Leno weren’t LD the world wouldn’t be what it is today. I’ve heard of a bumper sticker that makes me belive in this even more. It states… “You laugh at me because I am different…I laugh at you because you are the same.” If everyone was the same the world wouldn’t be a great place to live. I belive anyone who is ashamed to be LD shouldn’t have the privalage. God gave us a gift, and we should use it well. I am very proud to be LD. Anyone who says that we have a “problem” or an “illness” is just afraid that we may do something big. Something they can’t do. I would never take a pill to make it go away…in fact if I was normal… I’d want to take a pill to be LD!!!
Marie,
Wow. Well said.
So, I take it that you would not only NOT take such a pill, you’d NOT give it to a student, to your child or children, and you’d enlist me to destroy the pill factory?
Or at least protest in front of it. Let me know when the protest begins. I’ll bring sandwiches and blankets and will be there with my wife and cat.
I’d not take the pill, either. Why should I, as a learner, take some pill, when the real problem is that our educational system is too rigid to handle students who are not “typical”. The system needs the pill, not me.
Further, I conclude at the age of 54 that the very “learning disability” or “attention deficit disorder” that so vexed me in k-12 is almost certainly the source of many of my best creative ideas. (To say nothing of caustic wit and devilish sense of humor) No thanks, I rather like being “different”.
Bart,
…and we love you that way.
So, how far would we all go to defend our right to be different?
Would we boycott school as it now is? Would we home school our kids?
Some of us (Bart and me for sure) make a living doing reform from the inside but what happens when we’re forced to make a choice about being inside?
My wife (who’s a teacher) and I talk about this nightly. We almost always end up totally frustrated and acknowledgeing that these attitudes will not change in our lifetimes.
Fear of diversity goes deeper than American education; it’s in the culture pre and post 9/11 and is getting worse, not better.
I look at overuse or educational abuse of Ritalin and Prozac as short of the above pill to get rid of LD but on a path leading in that direction: We currently drug some kids to “normalize” them so they’re teachable.
Yikes!
I have ld and I am proud of it and if there is anyone the has a problem with it. OH WELL! I have been teased all my life but I didn’t let it bother me. I agree with what marie said. If God wanted us to all be the same. He would make us all the same. but that would be kind of boring, now wouldn’t.
Well said.
And, you bring to mind yet another point about this topic:
A learning disability is not who you are, it’s one part of you. The significance of that part is context sensitive: in school having a learning disability is a drag. Outside of school it’s less so.
Richard,
I think what you say about the use of drugs like prozak and ritalin, is true. ‘Yikes’ is the word!
As for the hypothetical question, I would probably take the pill. If it would enable me to read well, and eliminate some of my other dyslexic symptoms. So long as that is ALL it did.
Real world drugs are rather more general, so I would steer clear.
LD, is a relatively new term to me. I am not keen on it because it seems to me some are thinking ‘difference’ while others ‘difficulty’. I do not like this ambiguity as I do not believe I have a learning ‘difficulty’.
Richard
mrmiller,
When you say ld, do you mean difference or difficulty?
My mind sort of sees both, and it makes me quite uncomfortable with the term.
Richard
When I say LD I mean both. I’m describing the very real neurological “difference” that in some contexts we label “disability.”
The questioning of the term “disability” is important, but I think the PC (politically correctness) movement has put too much focus on linguistics and not enough on real understanding.
In other words, you can drop the term “disability” but it may not and probably will not change underlying attitudes, just surface apearance.
I come from a family of three siblings with learning disabilities. If I was born a few years later, I probably would had had been identified too. Currently, I am identified with ADD and with it, I have some auditory and visual processing problems. My three children have the same kinds of difficulties.
I do not want a pill that would make all the wonderful things about being learning different or learning disabled or ADD taken away. I love my ability to see things differently, problem solve, and reason.
I just want to be able to function independently like buying groceries by myself. I want my brain to do work, as I desire. It is extremely embarrassing to know the answer and something else comes out of your mouth. I hate the problems writing and making constant mistake after mistake.
When I started taking a medication, I was so angry with everyone for making me feel as if I did not try hard enough when I did my best. Before I started the medications, I was trying to prove that everyone right that I could do it if I tried hard enough. I admit that I still have some emotional pain from the whole experience of being ADD and unidentified and un-medicated for most of my life.
Life with the ADD medication is easy. It makes at least my brain work better. I would much rather live a shorter life with my brain working to my expectations than live a long life having to fight it all the way.
Yes, my children are medicated. They still reason, problem solve, and think, the way they did before they started the medication. Recently, my youngest daughter spent just about all her time after school doing homework because she could not copy from the book to the paper and she could not focus without redirection. After her medication was adjusted, she was able to do her assignments in the same time frame as her peer without modification/adaptation. Although, she is still having some problems with visual processing, she is able to cope. More importantly, her life is better with the medication.
It is when a person with learning difficulties thinks that others are thinking he or she is dumb that the pain really hurts.
I have seen the pain that being learning disabled/different can bring to a child’s life: through my siblings, my children, my students, other adults with LD/ADD and even my own life experiences. I do not want anyone without the learning disabilities/differences or ADD, to suffer needlessly when they still can enjoy all the wonderful things about having learning differences.
In my teaching, I use the wonderful things that many LD children naturally have which are their thinking skills. Currently, my students are creating movies so they can use and improve their upper level thinking skills to improve their problems with basic skills. I think that the way to help many children with learning differences is to build their thinking and creative skills so that they can learn to help themselves. We need to do this with or without medication.
Thank you for allowing me to express my opinion.
Janie,
I would just like to thank you for a deeply thought provoking post.
Never having heard an account first hand before of ADD medication, I certainly would not have believed, medication could make such a difference.
I am glad to hear it has been so positive for you.
You certainly have me thinking anyway.
Richard
Richard,
I am quite aware that in saying this, I might actually be emphasising my own ignorance more than anything else.
But, everybody in the world, is bad at something. It just happens that the one thing I am bad at is reading. (Spelling as well but, hey).
The only reason this difficulty generates the label Learning difficulty, is society deems literacy as very important.
I don’t deny, that literacy is important, and I continue to strive for improvement. However there are many areas of thought in which my learning is good. More than good even.
A general label of learning difficuly/disability, does not do that justice.
I am a strong believer that dyslexia, is specific, and as such I feel strongly that in general I am NOT learning dissabled.
Simplistic argument I know but, broardly speaking that’s how I feel.
Richard
he hypothesis is frightening indeed. I teach LD high school all day everyday. It is such a sorry commentary on our school system that we as community members make so many assumptions about these kids.
So many are crushed and frustrated by a system that stigmatizes and labels them amoung their peers. Many general education teachers and administrators are very ignorant about these kids.
My students ask me if I have LD and you know I may or may not, I am just too old to know or be diagnosed.
We have created so many broken lives for these students. I work in the system and admire their creativity and ability to reason. Their sense of humor is very quick and keen. Many of my students are using chemicals and abusing their bodies because they hunger for acceptence and belonging. For those of you who are doing well…that’s great. I see the broken and wounded souls who either have quit, or become to depressed to relate to life in a positive way.
I am sending all of my computer kids to this web sight because they need to develop an intense sense of advocacy.
I have taught at every grade level but the career change to special education working with LD kids is the most fulfilling job I have ever had.
We must all learn to respect differences.
I am angry because I have a student that has adopted the demeanor of a gang member. He struggles with words but he is a talented artist.
Day after day he is discouraged by an administration that searches his person due to the image he presents. I look in his eyes and I know he is not using at school. His file indicates no previous violations but ….
For this person the system is pushing and pulling him and he trusts few people. I encourage him everyday but what a struggle.
No chemicals, just mutual respect for differences.
More tolerance, more patience, more loving kindness towards others. To do anything to eliminate the grace I see in these students would be a tragedy.
Well, social acceptance at any cost is one thing that comes when you get wiped out socially and emotionally at school and elsewhere.
If schools are going to continue to beat kids up emotionally for learning differently then it should not come as much of a surprise that those kids will band together and form their own social units.
If only with I’d had the guts to be a bad boy in school. I sat there and took my F just like the next kid who didn’t care a lick about it all and had a group of friends who supported him no matter what his grades were.
What’s amazing about this is that quite a bit of research shows that kids and young adults learn more from and have more respect for their peers and friends than they do from any adults in their lives. When their peers and friends are bad boys…
I was hoping that things were better in California. It has been a while since I taught high school resource so I was hoping that things had improved over the last fifteen years. I do not know if you have this problem or not, but some people just can not differentiate between LD and mentally retardation. LD has nothing to do with mental retardation. Instead, LD has a lot to do with innovation, creativity and problem solving.
It is sad that so many of our very talented, creative, and intelligent students with learning disabilities are wasting away. Too many of them believe that they are dumb when they are just the opposite. Many believe that they have no power to make a difference in their lives when they can become their very own best instructor and overcome just about anything.
My LD instruction theory is to use the student’s higher level thinking skills to get students with LD and/or ADD to desire to learn basic skills. Do this by building the students’ problem-solving and creative skills. Provide an enriched environment where creativity and self-evaluation are demanded. Then grade based on individualized improvement. Instead of teaching from the basic skills up, reverse and teach from the higher level thinking skills down.
Here is an idea: create a long-term creative, problem-solving project that needs to be completed sometime near the end of the semester. Work on the project for 15 to 20 minutes a day. Provide a timeline for project checks. Also, provide a rubric for self, group, and teacher evaluations for use through out the project. Using the rubric grade based on improvement. Have group meetings and have students to discuss where improvements can be made in each other’s projects in a positive appropriate manner. Persons trying this method of instruction with LD’s will notice students getting excited about learning. Then students will be more motivated to listen and learn the basic reading, writing, spelling and math skills that are so hard for them to learn.
PKO in the LD Know, I am working on an ‘action research technology project,’ may I quote you?
Richard, It was my middle son’s developmental doctor who advised me that “auditory processing difficulties” go with ADD. I have not seen any literature to back this up, but I really did not look. His ADD medication worked and that was what mattered most.
Janie,
Check out:
http://www.allkindsofminds.org
It’s Mel Levin’s web site. Very useful for getting a handle on what might or might not come along with ADD.
Richard,
It’s wierd, I actually said those exact words about a year ago. If I could take a pill and wake up like ( everyone else) I would do it.I wouldn’t change who I was, but if there was something to inprove my memery, my thought prosesing ,to make it quicker, Sounds good to me!!
Gabrielle
Ah, and now you’re putting your finger on the key point:
What does a learning disability have to do with quickness of thought process?
And, is quickness of thought process in some way what it means to be smart or a part of being smart?
I am a very fast processor. My brain runs at full throttle all the time. I talk fast, walk fast, and come up with ideas very fast. If you ask me something I jump all over it before I’ve thought deeply about it. This impresses people but to me it feels more like a party trick because even though I’m smarter than I thought I was earlier in life, I’m of average intelligence.
My wife is a very slow processor. If you ask her something it’s like she didn’t hear it but she did and she’s thinking about it like a turtle. Maybe 5 minutes later she’ll say something. By then I’m out of the room. My wife is very intelligent; the way she thinks about things, the force of her brain considering many angles and wide breadth. Trust me, she’s very smart (helps to marry one if you’re not one).
Speed is not a bad thing to have but it’s not smart. Speed is just speed, smart is something else all together.
And, here’s the amazing thing: I do not want my wife’s brain (well it’s hers, I can’t have it): I like my brain. It’s not super smart but I’ve grown comfortable with it. It gets the job done.
But, before I realized that there was a difference between intelligence and learning disabilities I wanted to take the “pill” very badly. Now I wouldn’t take it if you paid me.
Hi Richard,
By thought processing I mean to always understand what is being said to me. When I am learning something new its like my mind is completely confused.Like the wires aren’t connecting right.
You gave me a thought provocating thought though. Some people have high intelligents and don’t use it.(which always baffled me) You made a good point when you said its the person who uses what they have that matters.Gabrielle
Gabrielle,
Thanks, and I really mean that.
But what many of us with LD don’t know (or don’t know yet) is this:
1. Everyone has a hard time when learning things that are completely new.
2. Learning styles differences make certain kinds of learning hard for everyone (not just people with LD). If you’re not a strong auditory learner then paying attention during a lecture is difficult. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid, just that lectures are not your best means of learning.
I’m a faster visual processor then auditory. As I’ve grown older I’ve found ways to compensate for this by using technology: I tape lectures, etc.
This is not disability but style. Everyone has some strong styles and weaker styles.
We tend to think that people with LD are all great visual processors and bad auditory but this is not true; I know many people who are dyslexic who are terrible visual processors and better auditory processors.
We try to make patterns to more easily classify people but in the end, this really does not work: there is a lot of variability among people who get labled “LD” and we can’t all be taught or dealt with in the same way.
This is why I hate labels and packaged ideas and curriculums.
Stereotyping is a wonderful shortcut but it gets us in trouble almost every time. Post 9/11 this is even more true.
- Everyone with a turban is not a terrorist.
- Everyone from the Middle East is not a terrorist.
- Everyone who does not speak English well is not stupid (it may not be their first language, etc.).
- Everyone who is LD is not stupid, gifted, a visual learner, etc.
- Everyone who is slow is not stupid.
- etc.
Richard,
Could you clarify what you mean there?
Presumably your intelligence didn’t change with this insight, what changed?
Richard
Gabrielle,
I think I am similar to you, I would like to see a pill.
Everyone has relative strengths or weaknesses LD or otherwise, but I certainly wouldn’t mind a pill that could cure some of my weak areas, while maintaining the strengths.
I have always read excruciatingly slowly, and would love to be able to access the written word at a higher pace.
Richard
Not everyone has had the experience of their own intelligence as separate from their learning disability but I have and these various experiences were the turning point(s) in my life.
What were they?
A series of “extra-curruclumar” experiences:
Getting good at art
Getting good at engine repair
Getting good at rock climing
I’ve documented this in this essay:
One Person’s Path to Literacy
Richard,
I read the article, but I still don’t really understand.
In the article you talk about confidence at being good at one thing and how that can be transfered. How by practice you found you could master new things.
What, in terms of these labels changed. Was it learning difficulty or intelligence?
Was it that you finally had the confidence to believe you could do anything with practice?
A pill would still be easier though?
Richard
Hi Richard,
While I understand how you are the person you are today because of yesterday, I wonder do you really have a learning problem or did it just take you longer to learn. You don’t mention what you still struggle with today?? While , I myself do believe everything does happen for a reason, I wouldn’t mind having life made alittle bit easier now. What do you think? Gabrielle
Hi Richard F.
Richard,
I don’t think you really got my article.
Neither. My image of myself changed and that in turn allowed me to venture into areas I might have been scared to try.
I don’t believe I can do anything with practice, I just learned that I can do more than I thought I could and everyone, even people who take “the pill” need to practice. I had not practiced reading and writing enough because I had no idea where the difficulty of learning ended, and the difficulty of learning with a learning disability began.
A pill doesn’t do the learning for you. You, even with your new brain (post-pill) will have to have experiences, make sense of them, and learn. And, if you got rid of your learning disability what would be left of “you?”
In other words, can you isolate your learning disability to a very specific set of things that when erradicated will not affect the rest of who you are?
It’s an interesting thought. And, do you really not like who you are enough to want to change it?
I really have come to like who I am, dyslexia and all.
Richard,
I don’t want you to think I am insinuating you aren’t dyslexic,It was a question I asked you because I guess I don’t understand because you almost seem to put non-dyslexics together with dyslexics as far as learning. I will never be able to change how my mind works no matter how much practice I do. My mind is very inconsistent from day to day in what I can process. Thats the part I would change. Gabrielle
I agree, dyslexia is not who you are but your experience up until now has been affected by your dyslexia, both positively and negatively. How can you sort out what the pill might do?
I don’t quite think our brains are compartmentalized so that taking the pill would just allow us to read faster. It seems like a wrong assumption to me that it will just make you a faster reader. It will also have other effects. That’s what I’m driving at.
What those effects might be I have no idea but the idea that those effects might not be what you expected is thought provoking.
Ah, you’re getting warmer…
Richard,
I’ll take your word for it after all your the one offering the hypothetical pill.
I was merelly saying that if it was possible to take a pill that enabled me to read faster, but not effect anything else (And I know quite well it is not) then I would take it.
If you are talking about a more general pill that ‘cured’ every aspect that is called dyslexic, well then the answer depends very much on what you define to be dyslexic. The answer would have to be specific enough to define which cognitive facets I would get to keep.
Or are we talking only about pills that could realistically be made; I don’t think I will be taking any of those.
Richard
Richard and Gabrielle,
The pill question stems from my fear that enough people with dyslexia would want to transform (change) themselves in some way that they would approve of genetic engineering to eliminate dyslexia.
The pill scenario is just a way of discussing a more general social idea that frightens and concerns me.
Richard,
I honestly don’t think that my learning difficulties are what define me. They are but a small part of who I am. I feel much more defined by the things I can do than the things I can’t. That asside I value myself for who I am, regardless of what I can or can’t do.
I am very happy with myself as I am now. That is not to say I would not love to be able to read at a more entertaining pace. If a pill could (but I don’t really think it could) do that for me I would take it, and yes if practice was still needed I would do that practice.
The way I am thinking of it is in terms of increasing my range of experience. So long as the experiences are positive and worth having that can only be a good thing.
Not holding my breath for the pill though.
Richard
Gabrielle,
I know exactly what you mean about the inconsistency. While no one is consistent all the time, I do sometimes feel that my level of performance on things is sometimes shockingly inconsistent. Just depends how I feel.
I can certainly understand wanting to change that, as it can really undermine confidence. I gave up playing certain games, because on occasions my performance was so bad. It felt like the people I was playing knew that if they got me in a certain mood I would just loose; a lot.
That is something I would be happy to change, but for me at least it is more of a gray area. Now perhaps were talking about something that is part of who I am. I am not so sure what a ‘me’ without this traight would be like.
Richard
Richard,
It certainly seems possible, if they have traced the gene that causes dyslexia, that people could in the future have the option of screening, or something like that.
Do you think that is ever likely to happen?
It is certainly a frightening idea.
For me I think the risks would be higher than the pay offs.
Richard
Richard,
And this is what my Eugenics article is all about: our fear of diversity coupled with the tools to get rid of “rough edges” will homogenize the human race.
You don’t have to know much about biology to know that a species without diversity dies and dies rather quickly.
The problem with our species is that we have the means to think about diversity (conciousness) and somehow have moved to a place where we’re scared of it rather than celebrating it.
Richard,
It certainly seems that diversity of language seems to be considered a bad thing. As microsoft have succesfully monopolised the computer industry and in doing so brought us greater compatibility, it seems to me (Sometimes ) the world wants to do the same with the very language of our thoughts.
I can see the advantages of this, don’t get me wrong, but as someone who does not comform to the language I, perhaps inevitably, feel that the loss is to great.
As you say diversity of a species is very important.
Richard
Richard,
As a Macintosh user, I think diversity of OS is also an important and great thing.
However, the way you use language is pretty much the way everone else does (well).
The way you think, however, may be different and that’s the treasure to protect. Your treasure and ours too.
I think the hypothetical question about a pill to cure LD, actually relates to more than one question.
The personal question. What is it about your LD you would most like to change, or not change, given that I had a magic wand and could grant your wish?
Given that there are real pills out there already; what are their merits and demerits?
The Future. In the future more intrecate medical interventions may be possible. What might they be, how will they affect society, and in particular those with LD?
Richard
If someone could take a pill and make “it” all go away… pretty big question.
The sad thing is that anyone, healthy or unhealthy, stable or unstable, could walk into a doctor’s office right now and be diagnosed with a disorder out of the DSM-IV. If you look at the manuals used to diagnose and then subsequently treat people nowadays, almost everyone you know will fit somewhere. Now, what this means is that researchers typically have identified medications for the disorders listed in the diagnosis manuals these doctors use.
The problem is this: When you live your whole life with a disorder or a disability such as a learning disability you would have to depend on someone else’s definition of “normal”. Others have implanted the notions of what you can and can not do effectively. Through this systematic concentration on failure it has been streesed that you must change some how, not the school or society.
You are you, you have only existed and experienced life as you. Your existence for intent and purpose is “normal”. However, due to the long-term effects of having a learning disability society makes it appear as if YOU are not normal somehow.
Well, my question is this: How would anyone know that the medication had truly worked? If the medication just makes you the same as everyone else, does that mean there was something wrong with you in the first place? Who made the decision that something was so wrong with you that it needed to be “fixed”?
What if there no pill. What if it were Electric Shock Therapy or Brain surgery, what length would people go to?
As a footnote: I worked with children with significant learning disabilities and/or emotional disabilities for 9 years. The population I worked with was middle and high school level. The bulk of issues that had to be dealt with regarding self-esteem and a willingness to try (some were 12-14 and did not know their alphabet, they had given up and someone had let them) was to get this message through to them. They are people first. They have wonderful personalities, strengths, hobbies, interests and abilities. The fact that they also had a disabilty was only a small part of them. Eventually we talked about how it always seemed like such a big part of them, but in reality it is just a big part of their survival in school so it seemed much bigger than what it was. Going back to the heirachy of needs, if you are fighting for survival, you think of nothing else. It consumes your world and all you want to do is make it go away. Once they learned that they could survive and that there was support, academics turned around.
Cy,
Oh… I loved reading your post, thank you for taking the time to share.
Not to be PC about this but when you take the word “disability” out of the equation and use the word “difference” all of a sudden taking a pill, having shock therapy or having yourself medically changed in some way looks barbaric.
So, maybe the question should have been: are these “states” we current call “LD” really “disability” or differences that society has conviniently categorized as a disability to channel certain kinds of attention to them (careers, school programs, etc.)?
If I offered you a pill and told you that it would eliminate your learning disability forever, would you take it?
I would not! I made some sort of peace with myself at around 11 or so when I asked myself if I would want to be someone else. The answer was no. I like who I am.
I am dyslexic and probably ADD. School was pure hell! Still is as I am taking some night courses at age 63. I have learned how I learn, though.
It is not pretty and takes lot sof time and effort to build a metal image or model but once I have this mental image I can add to it forever and I don’t forget. Kinda neat!
The ADD gave me lots of energy for most of my life. Slowing down now.
I do wish though that LD would have been around earlier. It may have helped with relationships.
Richard – thank you for the website.
PeterD
I have had this discussion many times over the years and been accused of being pro eugenics.
I have cared for my daughter, who has severe/profound whatever you want to call it, cognitive impairment, autism, blindness, epilepsy , for many years now.
She was one of these ‘miracle’ babies , born far too early, not VIABLE. Yet she was resuscitated many times and kept alive by machines.
She is fine as long as I am there or able to advise. She survived at the expense of my relationship, career, other daughter’s childhood . I only realised lately, she has been my entire adulthood.
And all that struggle I have been through, means nothing. Without support and caring staff she reverts very quickly to a distressed state. What will happen when I die? She will end up in some form of institutional care. Either in a hospital or in the community, it is all basic. Low paid overworked staff. No philosophy of care, no theoretical underpinning to their approach. And no real regard for my daugher and the tens of thousands like her. Is it even right (???) to describe her existence as a LIFE, when she has no MIND ?
yea i would take because there is no poin of liveing if you can not spell of write and read is there so yea i would take it