soon he will need his own tag.
I like Susan too but Jeremy is definitely the win: "Hey ladies and gentlemen, this is Jeremy Vest in a store the name of I don't know, we got our prom outfits and we're ready to rock and roll tonight." I wish I talked that fast.
Also on a serious level, I feel incredibly nervous for them going into a prom like that, it's like disabilities + high school = why would you do that if you don't have to, but it seems like no one's being a dick to them at all, which is pretty great.
(Is it okay to use the intellectual disability tag for Williams? I don't know anyone with Williams but a lot of the reason I have so much interest in it is that it seems to be kind of like ASD in that it's less of a straightforward impairment--hopefully after my previous post, this doesn't come off like I think people with Williams are better than other intellectually disabled people because "they're good at music" or something, but just that I think it's a different kind of experience and I'm interested in meeting people who have it. When people post How's Your News videos on YouTube, there are often some comments from people who are confused about the nature of Vest's disability--"what does he have, ADD?")
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I don't know anyone diagnosed with Williams syndrome, but watching that clip reminded me of a close friend who has a very similar (if not quite as pronounced) facial "look" to Jeremy Vest, who also has an (undiagnosed, but being investigated, and shared with her twin sister) impairment with regard to visual/spatial processing and aspects of (mostly visual) memory. She's fairly close to neurotypical in other ways (has a high IQ and a degree, and is very successful socially, although she has emotional issues related to her memory which are quite similar to some of mine which i characterise as "internalised oppression" due to having grown up as an undiagnosed autistic), but the mention of visual processing problems on the Wikipedia article for Williams syndrome have got me intrigued as to whether it's possible to have a mild-enough-to-go-undiagnosed form of it, or due to some random fluke to have WS and not have one's overall "intelligence" (which is a very vague concept anyway) affected?
ReplyDelete(I'm also reminded of the blogger Kassiane aka the Rett devil, who has Rett syndrome, which is usually regarded as resulting in being noverbal and profoundly intellectually impaired, as well as significant physical impairment, yet she is a gymnast and a highly verbal and intelligent writer...)
On the other hand, Lewis from the UK web-TV show "The Specials" also has WS, and doesn't seem to me to have (so much of) the same facial "look", so... I dunno.
(Just found your blog via FWD, incidentally. Will probably comment on a few other posts too...)
doesn't Kassiane Sibley technically not have Rett, she just has some of the same genes or something? maybe that's your friend's situation irt Williams.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what I'm talking about, by the way, I don't know anything about genetics.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen The Specials but I've heard of it. Is it worth watching?
Oh, maybe that's true of Kassiane. I'm not totally sure, i just know she says she has "the Rett mutation" on her blog, and i once read something she wrote about people with Rett syndrome being characterised as "angels", and her calling herself "The Rett Devil" as an ironic response to that. Sounds plausible, anyway, though i don't know a lot about genetics either.
ReplyDeleteThe Specials (not to be confused with the late 70s/early 80s UK ska revival band featuring Terry Hall and Jerry Dammers) can be seen here: http://www.the-specials.com/ - judge for yourself how good you think it is; i'd say it's worth watching, but left me a bit frustrated with the issues it kind of touched on or skirted around but didn't really go very deeply into... i may or may not eventually write a proper critique of it ;)
I stumbled across your blog because I was actually hoping to figure out what happened to Jeremy. I went to High School with him and once to Homecoming our Junior year. He was a truly sweet guy. He would talk about fire trucks and such. He was really sensitive too. He understood he was "different" than everyone else. But he was lucky in the sense that everyone at school treated him really well. People would high five him in school and talk to him and such. Maybe he was already doing this show, which might explain it, but still. He was a good guy and really sweet. I have an older brother with Asperger's and knowing the struggles he had socially in school make me appreciate now how lucky Jeremy was to have been so accepted. I never knew what he had. He never talked about it and I only found out about it after high school when i googled him after hearing he had an MTV show. Either way, that's my two cents on Jeremy.
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