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Awareness, Respect And Appreciation For All
March 2, 2013
By Jake Jacobs
The month of March is nationally recognized as Developmental Disability Awareness Month. The idea behind this is to have all of us more aware of our fellow citizens who have some degree of intellectual or developmental disability. I for one would like to do away with this awareness month. Why do we need to commemorate something that should be ingrained in every civilized nation of the world? Every day of the year we should be aware of persons with developmental disabilities, just as we are aware of the weather, the person standing next to us in line at the market, or a child playing in the park. Every day in every way people with development disabilities are around us and part of our world.
The number of persons alive with a developmental disability grows every year. This is the result of a number of factors: diagnostic capabilities have improved, such as with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Better health care is being provided, both to children and adults, thus increasing the lifespan of individuals. And despite best efforts in pre-natal care, intellectual and developmental disabilities are increasingly common, affecting around 1 in 6 children in the US; and these disabilities last a lifetime.
The number of persons with a developmental disability living in our communities grows every year. States across the nation are closing large segregated institutions and moving people into our communities, where over 70 national studies have shown that they do far better there than sequestered from view and isolated from society. In just the past few years the Missouri Department of Mental Health – Developmental Disability Division has moved 730 people from state-run facilities to live in homes and apartments throughout Missouri.
Recently we have seen a national initiative to remove the “R” word (retarded) from our vocabulary; but there are other words just as negative that have been used to describe persons with disabilities. The words imbecile, moron, and idiot were once used as clinical descriptions of persons with developmental disabilities. We still use words like client, consumer, and special needs, labels that only serve to separate and isolate people who just have different abilities. If you stop and think about it, we all have different levels of disabilities; for example I have to wear eyeglasses because of my visual disability.
The bottom line is that all of us have disabilities and abilities to one extent or another. Singling out one month a year to draw attention to persons with developmental disabilities may be something we have to do at this stage in our culture. But I am hopeful that one day we do not need to do that, and that all people regardless of their abilities in life will be respected and appreciated by each of us.
Jake Jacobs is the executive director of Developmental Disability Services of Jackson County – EITAS. He lives in Kansas City.
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