My mother-in-law gave me a book to read that was written by Joyce who was one of her classmates growing up. It is a story mainly about Craig, her son, who has Down Syndrome. They also have another son, Kerry, who they adopted a few years after they had Craig.

This is a straightforward book written about their experiences with Craig. I found it interesting to see how they worked through their challenges with their son. They had him segregated for a few years and then decided that it was important to mainstream him with other students not like him. They wanted Craig not to be closed up in his own world but to experience the world as it is. It was also important to them to have others be around someone with Down Syndrome so that they might understand them better and realize they are just like them in a lot of ways.

Joyce and her husband Bill moved frequently because of his job transfers and in each town had to start all over with getting the school systems to setup programs that would include kids with Down Syndrome. They were amazed at how quickly Craig blossomed when placed in a mainstreamed school system.

I could relate to this book in some ways because our son Evan, is kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum. He is highly gifted and sometimes, like Craig, doesn’t always fit the mold. He is in a lot of ways a special needs student. Gifted kids tend to be way ahead of their classmates intellectually but maybe behind their classmates socially and/or emotionally. This imbalance is sometimes hard to deal with. We realize that we, like Joyce and Bill, will have to push for his needs to be met. In our case we are helping to develop an enrichment program at Evan’s school. There are other kids there that are gifted as well and just like those kids that are slow learners, they have needs that need met too.

“Down (Syndrome) But Not Out” is not a world class novel. However, it is insightful and interesting. I enjoyed learning more about what it means to have Down Syndrome and what the parents have to go through to be advocates for their Down Syndrome child.