A Fascinating Mind

As Reagan, 16 y.o. with Down syndrome (Ds) gets more mature, I become more fascinated with the way she thinks and responds to life. She is quite verbal so I am given a wonderful picture of what she thinks and feels.

Feelings/Emotions

Reagan often tells me she has feelings. It’s funny, at times, because she displays her emotions clearly. I know she has feelings! She verbalizes them quite well. I have no doubt she experiences the whole range of emotions common to humanity. If you’re willing to listen, she will tell you her life history, marked by events that are important to her displaying the joy or sadness (or something in between) that accompanies the events.

Reagan often asks me to tell her the stories of her infancy and toddler years. Those years of which she has no memories - like most of us. She wants to hear them in chronological order starting with her growing inside my womb, her birth and then year by year by birthdays. I tell her the stories which she greatly enjoys, she to commits them to memory and then to retell the stories – great exercises in stretching auditory processing skills! She then tells the stories of which she has no recall with the feelings I project and articulate. The rest of her life story of which she has wonderful recall she adds so that her life story is orderly and makes sense to her just like she is reliving it - emotion and all.

Fascinating.


Thinking

Did you know that people with Ds often think and recall events in pictures? It makes sense because of their relative visual strengths and weaknesses in auditory processing. They have excellent visual memory skills and an amazing recall of people, places and past events. Their strong visual skills are useful in so many ways – learning, in social areas and enhancing independence.


So why do I find this fascinating?

It is who she is. As a mother, I find the way my children think and respond to life fascinating. Because of the intimacy we share, I enjoy the uniqueness of my children. It has been a journey of discovery and joy getting to know how their minds work and who they are.

Mourning. Reagan's mourning is different. She mourns the sister who died before she was born as if she knew her. She mourns the loss of the pets she remembers, a dog and a cat – beloved members of our family. These pets died 7 and 5 years ago respectively. She mourns them in the same way she mourned them when they died. It’s intense, tearful and she verbalizes the same pain and sadness today as she did yesterday, last month and the years since they died.

Changes. I am trying to help Reagan with the changes in her life today. She is adjusting to Kiera being off to college but it is still hard. She has “rain clouds” in her eyes daily. She tears up frequently and expresses great sadness that her sister isn’t here with us.

The Problem

I know Reagan is a concrete thinker. She shows me little in the way of abstract thought.

She knows what time it is and what she needs to be doing.

She doesn’t, however, have a sense of time. It is just something marked by the clock and the calendar.

Today, I opened up Mental Wellness in Adults with Down Syndrome, A Guide to Emotional and Behavioral Strengths and Challenges* by Dennis McGuire, Ph.D. and Brian Chicoine, MD to gain some insights and found some great information that helped me put the pieces together that might help Reagan and found:

Disadvantages of a Strong Visual Memory

Characteristics of memory recall in people with Down syndrome

"Difficulty in linking memories to time
Although people with Ds have exceptional memory for past events, they often have little understand of when these events occur in time – due to the abstract notion of time. Many people with Ds do not have a good sense of recalled events as part of the past or as part of an historical sequence of events

The tendency to relive past memories in the present
It seems that combining their visual form of thinking with the absence of a sense of time results in a unique phenomenon. People with Ds do not seem to remember a past event so much as to relive or experience as if it is happening now – often with the same feelings and emotions experienced at the time of the event.

The tendency to repeat specific memories
Many people with Ds replay certain specific memories over and over. These repeated memories are often memories that elicit strong positive or negative emotions. Given the intensity of their visual memory, they are able to transport themselves virtually backing to relive these experiences."

This is Reagan! Her difficulty adjusting to the changes in our lives and mourning her losses does not interfere with her ability to function. These mourning episodes are brief and then she is done. It is incredibly sad for me to watch but now I understand better why her fascinating mind works the way it does!

*Do not wait until your child is nearing adulthood to buy this book. It is full of insights into our children with Ds too