Final Project: Reflection on the Texts as a Set

Sadly, trying to find these texts was a chore in itself. I had a list of about twenty different books portraying Down Syndrome, and was only able to locate four of them. Having a younger brother of my own that does in fact have Down Syndrome, I felt very passionate about this topic as I had never before seen any children's books depicting a child with Down Syndrome as a main character. I kept thinking how beneficial this would have been for my brother growing up had I researched this topic a while ago, yet researching it now has answered a lot of my questions that I had about what types of books were made available to readers. With few accessible books on this diverse group, I am actually quite pleased at what I found in the few texts that I did end up finding. "ABC for You and Me" and "123 for You and Me" were absolutely great. I wish that my brother had these books growing up to use as a reference for letters and numbers. I could also imagine him enjoying the children in the book as they are real photographs of children with Down Syndrome, perhaps my brother could have identified with these characters. I also think that reference books like these work great as a classroom resource. Showing children with disabilities in books that are constantly used as a reference book can only improve other students' comfort levels with the idea of disability. If students never see or hear about children with disabilities, how are they expected to know how to treat them and/or how NOT to treat them? I, therefore, think that these books would work great in a classroom as a way to incorporate children with Down Syndrome into subject matter.

"Where's Chimpy?" and "Big Brother Dustin" were both also great books to use to represent this disability. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about how the books didn't mention (at all) the fact that the main characters had Down Syndrome, but after thinking about it, I really think that this is a positive way to view these characters. I don't think that these characters in the books need to be identified by their disability to begin with. On the other hand, I do think that it is a teacher's responsibility (when teaching one of these books to a class) to discuss the idea of disability and show through the book how these children are no different than everyone else (and how they are able to do things that other kids can do). I feel that most of the authors that I have used for my final project are insiders for this specific group. Most of the authors have either grown up living next door to a child that has Down Syndrome or has children of their own with Down Syndrome. I would greatly consider their experiences to be valid when writing a book about this topic.

Overall, I feel that the few books that I did find on this topic did a great job portraying this group of individuals accurately and without discrimination. The authors of these books all treated the characters with Down Syndrome as if they were the same as any other child, and I firmly believe that this is essential in showing children that these children are just like them. Promoting similarities rather than noting differences between children with Down Syndrome and other children is the first step towards creating acceptance and eliminating bias and stereotypes.