Some acquaintances of mine here in
Columbus have a
daughter with
Down's syndrome. The girl is apparently a
genetic mosaic (in other words, some of her cells have a
normal genetic structure). She is highly
intelligent and has an excellent
verbal ability; tests have indicated she has an
IQ of about 140. She's in regular
school taking advanced-placement
math and honors-level
English courses.
However, she's not without mental symptoms of the syndrome -- she lacks normal emotional control and has a lot of trouble with social interactions. A friend of mine has described her as being a lot like a highly-functional autistic person in that regard.
More unfortunately, the girl has a host of health problems related to the syndrome and has spent a lot of time in the hospital (in fact, as of the morning after I posted this, she was in the ICU after her most recent surgery went badly. I hope she doesn't die.).
While I know she's at the far end of the bell curve for people with Down's Syndrome, in the earlier parts of this century she'd have been given up as a lost cause at birth and probably would have been abandoned to rot in an institution someplace.
The aunt and uncle of a different friend of mine -- who are very wealthy country-club suburbanites -- had a baby with Down's in the late 70s and immediately gave him up for adoption. My impression is they assumed the child would never amount to anything and they didn't want to deal with the hassle and embarrassment of raising a "deficient" child. I hope the kid found a nice, involved family and didn't just wind up being warehoused.