Downright Joy

Discovering joy in unexpected places – a journey into Down's syndrome, Dyspraxia & Autism

Tag Archives: #science


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Close Up

raindrops

Sunday evenings, at least here in the U.K., may be sometimes spent watching the most extraordinary wildlife documentaries on television. Against backdrops of breathtaking scenery, coupled with state of the art photography and filming, you can be taken on amazing journeys, encountering incredible creatures and habitats. Microscopic technology takes the viewer from the comfort of their armchair on a voyage of infinite discovery. Ordinary grains of sand, for instance, taken from the beach and magnified to reveal a dazzling Aladdin’s cave effect. Stunning jewel like precision and design. Each one different, unique, whether you believe them to be created or evolved. Redefining the meaning of a close up. Jaw dropping photography.

The hardest of hearts can be moved to tears at the sight of once magnificent sea creatures now suffering a terrible injustice. Suffering because of the shameful amount of plastic we humans have disposed of in their environment.  Whole movements that seek to reverse this horror have been born out of witnessing such atrocities. We care, they say. Though we didn’t used to, we do now.

Such is the power of technology; it advances our understanding of the world around us and helps us set to rights the wrongs we have committed. Technological advances being used for the good of the environment and, ultimately, all its inhabitants.

Yet it troubles me greatly that this same technology that allows us to travel further than we’ve ever travelled before and see in micro detail that which was previously unknown is so very, very limited. A technology that sees everything yet at the same time sees nothing.

Screening tests that are more advanced than ever before can now detect the possibility of Down’s syndrome in the unborn earlier than ever. (And, worryingly, it’s not always pointed out that the results can be wrong). Technology is so advanced that it won’t be long before all kinds of other genetic conditions are identified in utero. Many believe this to be a good thing. Technological advances supposedly being used for the good of society. Yet the ‘good’ these particular screening tests do is questionable, more often than not at the expense of another and largely unchallenged from an ethical standpoint.

As I write this blog, my daughter, who has Down’s syndrome is clutching a leaf.

It has held her attention for some time now. She marvels at it. Holds it between her fingers and spins it. She does not speak words, yet her voice echoes the joy she experiences from examining the leaf in her tiny grasp.

I hear her.

I hear too her newly acquired footsteps around the house. A sound that still makes my heart sing. Each footstep fought for over the last eight years.  Footsteps that we wondered if we’d ever hear. Though it wouldn’t have mattered if we didn’t …not greatly anyway. We do not measure her life by whether she can walk or talk. We do not measure her life at all really. How could we? It’s impossible to measure the joy she brings us each day, even if we tried. She has redefined the meaning of close up as she enables us to see so much more of life than we ever realised was there.

Just like it’s impossible to detect much more than one extra chromosome at a screening test. A truly advanced technological breakthrough that apparently tells you so much yet actually takes you further away from the reality of what or who is really there, beneath the surface. Waiting to be discovered, waiting to be loved, waiting to be nurtured, waiting to be cared for. And yes, I still count it an absolute privilege to care for, marvel at and learn from another human being, however many challenges there may be, extra chromosome or not. Indeed, parents, advocates and of course people with Down’s syndrome themselves are increasingly fed up of being told to bow at the altar of personal choice when it comes to prenatal screening. As if a person with Down’s syndrome were just another option at the Fresher’s Fayre of parenting options. Discrimination has never been so cleverly disguised.

I wish that in every heart that is rightly moved by the plight of the cormorant trapped in plastic or the dolphins tangled in discarded nets, there would be found the same outrage towards the plight of people with Down’s syndrome. An Extinction rebellion – though of course Down’s syndrome itself can never be made extinct even though worldwide efforts to prevent live births are abhorrently successful.

A people group so targeted by technology before they are even born. Deemed unworthy of protection yet feared enough for detection.

A lens that can detect them yet does nothing to protect them.

A lens that sees everything and nothing.

It appears to me that the lens is facing the wrong way.

H & leaf

For more information about what it’s really like to bring up a child with Down’s syndrome go to Positive About Down’s Syndrome

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Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope

Some say that the old toys we used to play with as children were the best. I’m inclined to disagree; I much prefer, on the whole, the technology we have nowadays. iPads win over Etch a Sketch for me any day.

I recall a time when, as a child of the seventies, Science Sets were all the rage. Big shiny boxes with a photograph of a child wearing a white coat and spectacles on the front. Holding in their hands a bottle of some brightly coloured liquid and a pipette. Always a pipette. Test tubes, potions and conical flasks found their way into many a bedroom- turned laboratory.

But they were not for me.

I never had a Science Set. Perhaps I never asked for one, I’m not sure. It seems unlikely, given that the only toy I was interested in experimenting on was a Girls World; hairstyling and make up appealed more to me than staring into a microscope.

I did, however, own a kaleidoscope. One of those garishly coloured tubes with a twisty end and a lens to look through.

A toy which, on the face of it, could not compete with the Science Set. A toy which was easily disregarded and unlikely to make it onto most children’s Christmas lists. Undesirable. Though, if your childhood was anything like mine, then you probably got one anyway – it was the kind of toy your Granny would buy you.

Yet it was a toy that held a secret.

A toy that, when you held it up to the light, something beautiful happened – if you looked inside it. Brightly coloured shapes would form into patterns, shifting around as you twisted it. A new landscape with each turn. Different, each and every time. No pattern ever quite the same. Vibrant. Drawing you into its charm. As you closed one eye, whilst the other peered through the lens, all else around you became obscured.  A toy that took you into a new, mysterious and enchanting world.

Mesmerising.

A toy that did not have to be cleaned up or packed away in its box. A toy that, when most other toys had lost their appeal, kept on giving. All you had to do was take it in your hand, put it to your eye and look up. Look up at the light and take a closer look at the beauty that was within.

Along with me, those mini scientists grew up. Most abandoning their childhood experiments in favour of other career paths. But some continued. Their interests awakened at an early age and their skills honed in a state of the art, technological era of scientific discovery. They are the scientists of today. Brilliant minds pursuing new and exciting technologies.

Some of them have made new discoveries. Most recently in the field of pre-natal screening. They have found more advanced ways than ever before of telling a pregnant woman whether the baby she is carrying has Down’s syndrome – though they are not always as accurate as those who sell the tests  sometimes claim.

More advanced ways to view the unborn life using big grown up Down’s syndrome detecting Science sets.

If only they’d use a kaleidoscope; they would discover so much more.

Look up at the light, see the landscape.

Kaleidoscope 2