Intellectual Disabilities

Persons with Intellectual Disabilities or Intellectually Disabled Persons: Which is the Classifying Entity?

As I write this, sitting in a solitaire corner of the library, I'm gently enclosing in my hand a simple rubber bracelet. My inspiration. Not the famous, bright yellow LiveStrong ones that Neil Armstrong once yielded, but a modest black band with contrasting white letters simply stating "I See You." This statement may seem unpretentious and bland, maybe even comical to some, but it has a sincere meaning that, once elaborated, is a melodious significance and tribute to not only the raw entanglement of modern human culture, but also the subtle complex notions of social interactions.

Central Africa's customary greeting is "I See You." It's a brilliant recognition of the individual being. The standard American greeting "How are you?" is often said with no regard to any true emotion or answer. Saying "I See You" means you recognize another as a person, as an equal, as a fellow human being, and as a friend, which is something that few people bother to do. This is also the mission statement of a unique and distinct organization known as Best Buddies, that works with students with intellectual disabilities. I'm proud to claim myself a Peer Buddy, their title for "normal" students that are matched with Buddies, the students with intellectually disabilities.

Most people shudder when I mention this fact, seemingly knowing that these people hardly qualify as intellectually anything, even disabled. Their perceptively blank stares, erratic movements and introverted ways are not considered human. For all we know, they could be self-injurious and bang their heads against walls in a rampant act to obtain a cookie. People cringe at their touch and dare not touch them, understanding the impossibility for these people to contain any level of personality or emotion. I mean, it's not like the people affected by intellectual disabilities are actually human.

They couldn't be. They can't make eye contact. They can't speak. It doesn't even look like they can hear. Some believe that parents should be stricter, punishing such behavior. Others believe it's the parents fault in the first place, for being such a bad parent that a child resorts to a mental illness by choice. And worse yet, many believe that a mandatory vaccine alleged to protect a child from measles, mumps and rubella actually ruins that child's life by inflicting autism upon them and spinning them into a life of solitude and personal resentment. The few people in the world that are so unlucky as to be stricken with such retardations are doomed to an incomplete and hopeless circuition.

"Why even bother keeping people with intellectual disabilities alive?" I've heard asked. Some even argue it's inhumane to make them go through this. What these people don't understand is that they themselves are profoundly ignorant, uncultivated and downright primitive.

As I mentioned above, I am a Peer Buddy in Best Buddies and I work with the intellectually disabled on a daily basis. I've learned more about myself during this than I have through any other experience. I walked into this environment with the same notions I mentioned above, but not a single one is true.

Being intellectually disabled isn't even a mental illness, retardation or a choice. It's a behavioral disorder that can be a hidden blessing. These people have the ability to see life through a child's eyes everyday. They are excited by the simplest things and can find the fun or creativity in anything put at them. I was once working with a Buddy named Geoffrey, who has Asperger's syndrome (a milder form of autism). We were stringing colorful glass beads onto fishing twine in an effort to exercise his cognitive skills. I had had a long day and was constantly dropping my work, spilling beads everywhere. As I was ready to give up and move on to his reading practice, he looked up and said in his timid but sure voice, "I don't mind that you drop them. Seeing the colors roll and bounce is so mesmeric." He closed his eyes and slowly pronounced the last word. I had taught it to him the day