I understand that a diagnosis can be comforting
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you meant by "comforting" but I doubt that any parent or person diagnosed with a disability finds it "comforting" to have a diagnosis. My experience has been that it's enlightening - leads to personal understanding and starts the journey to making sound decisions for therapies, remediation and accommodations. Having a disability isn't something anyone I've known really *wants* or would choose to have, but having a diagnosis and an understanding of that disability is something that most people I've known with disabilities appreciate and find helpful. I hope I'm understanding that and not mis-speaking, I'm not sure I've explained it well.
[quote[but I am concerned that society seems to becoming less tolerant of differences[/quote]
Call me an optimist but from what I've seen I think we're (as a human race) getting more tolerant - at least in the small corner of the world I've experienced.
everything has to be explained by a condition instead of just being accepted as human diversity.
All those explanations of conditions come from acquired knowledge, from learning more and more about our human condition. All that knowledge is helping people who in earlier days would have had a far greater struggle in life and not have perhaps been successful instead be able to live up to their full abilities. I've seen this in my dh's family - first with his father, who was never diagnosed with anything but was just known as "never talks" and "very difficult to talk to". Everyone who knew him just chalked that up to personality. Now that I've parented a child with an expressive language disorder, I have to wonder - was it his choice not to talk, simply his personality, or was there a person hidden behind the lack of voice who was much like my ds, a person with amazing and wonderful ideas to share with the world but no understanding of how to get them out?
Also in my ds' generation there are more than a few cases of dysgraphia/dyslexia. One of ds' cousins wanted more than anything to go to med school and would have made an *amazing* dr - full of compassion and oh so danged smart. Yet in school she could never achieve the scores on reading comprehension etc parts of exams that she needed to go to med school (she did very well on math/science and her profs in college all felt she'd be a wonderful candidate for becoming a dr). Looking back 30 years ago, she had a vision challenge when she was very young. During the time prior to it being corrected, she remembers going to remedial reading classes at school but that eventually stopped when her eyesight issues were resolved successfully. After she'd already graduated from high school, when my dd with vision issues started vision therapy and she heard about it, she found so many similarities in her own life and her own struggles with reading. But now she's an adult, independent, doesn't have the $ to go back and get a diagnosis for the purposes of retaking med school exams etc and she's moved on in life. She'll have a wonderful life, but wow, the world missed out on an amazing dr. It makes me sad just to think of it
The cool thing is - more and more children, today, in school and with vigilant parents at home - are having their challenges recognized and identified and they're getting help and accommodations. It's a *good* thing. Really!
polarbear
