EPISODES

To infantilize someone is to treat them as younger or less capable than they are. For people with disabilities, this often shows up in subtle but harmful ways: baby talk, lowered expectations, behavior plans for age-appropriate teen behavior, speaking about someone as if they aren’t in the room, or limiting choices because we assume immaturity.

In this episode of The Lucky Few Podcast, we continue our What I Wish I’d Known series by talking about inclusion — and being honest about how it actually feels. When we hear the word inclusion, we don’t immediately feel hopeful. We feel heaviness. Process. Fight. Sometimes discouragement.

EPs can feel overwhelming, emotional, and complicated—and that’s because they are. In this episode of The Lucky Few Podcast, we kick off our new season, What I Wish I’d Known About…, by talking about IEPs—what we wish we understood from the very beginning, and what we’ve learned the hard way.

Elana Meyers Taylor is a five-time Olympian and one of the most decorated athletes in winter sports history. She has earned one gold, three silver, and two bronze Olympic medals for Team USA, and is a four-time World Champion, with two gold medals in both the two-woman and mixed team events. She is also the most decorated Black winter Olympian of all time.

Today we’re diving deep into the way our children communicate! We’re asking some difficult but important questions about how we support their speech and language. How do our kids feel when people cannot understand their speech? How do they feel when we, as their parents, cannot understand their speech? How are we supposed to implement all the speech therapy tools? When is it time to just focus on one area of growth for our kids? How do our kids use “self-talk” to share stories and self-soothe?

Today we’re diving deep into the way our children communicate! We’re asking some difficult but important questions about how we support their speech and language. How do our kids feel when people cannot understand their speech? How do they feel when we, as their parents, cannot understand their speech? How are we supposed to implement all the speech therapy tools? When is it time to just focus on one area of growth for our kids? How do our kids use “self-talk” to share stories and self-soothe?

Jennifer Gray is a certified speech language pathologist with over 20 years of experience working with the Down syndrome community. Today we’re asking her all the questions we’ve forgotten to ask our children’s own speech therapists. If you’re a caregiver hoping for guidance or a speech therapist interested in treating individuals with DS, this episode is for you!

Last week we sat down for an interview with trauma expert Dr. Karyn Harvey and today the three of us are unpacking all of our feelings about it. We’re asking ourselves some pretty heavy questions about trauma and intellectual disability. Here’s what we know for certain: our children with intellectual disabilities understand when they are being excluded. And it’s our job to remind them just how incredibly lucky this world is to have them in it.

Dr. Karyn Harvey is a psychologist, author, trainer, speaker, and EXPERT in the field of psychology, intellectual disability, and trauma. Have you ever thought of the trauma that individuals with intellectual disabilities face each day? The examples are endless.. a negative diagnosis experience, being excluded, or even being placed in an institution.

Last week we had an important conversation with Dr. Michael Rafii all about the link between DS and Alzheimer’s disease. If you’re still processing everything you learned from that interview, that’s okay. Sit down with the three of us + our good friend Kandi Pickard (CEO of the National DS Society) and we’ll talk through it together!