For more info..

Throughout my blog I've found a lot of information about Williams Syndrome. I found the website http://www.williams-syndrome.org/ the most resourceful. It gives information for new parents, describing what Williams syndrome really is and helpful ways to help their Williams child. It also gives information for teachers and strategies and helpful ideas for the classroom for teaching a child with Williams syndrome. It gives information for doctors as well such as genetic information as to what causes Williams syndrome and statistics. This site is also filled with fun activities and events that are going on throughout the United States. This website was very helpful in my research for Williams syndrome.

Words to live by

I found this quote and I absolutely love it.

Know the person, not the disability, in fact look past the disability and you will see a person, a person who has the same thoughts and feelings as anyone else. - Unknown

My life with Williams

In this video Nicki Hornbacker is a 19 year old girl with Williams Syndrome. This is a perfect example of the characteristics and personality of people with Williams. She always has a smiling face and makes the best of everything just like my friend Brittany who has Williams! To view this video just click the link below.


http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/07/06/magazine/1194817106646/my-life-with-williams.html

Just like you

This is a clip of a Gatorade commercial I found for the specail Olympics. I like this clip because it shows how similar these specail athletes are to any other athlete, check it out!

Walk for Williams campaign

May 9-15th marks the first national Williams Syndrome Awareness Week and the WS community will be celebrating with fundraisers and events across the country. The nearest walk to me will be in St. Louis, Mo at 9AM at the Maryville University in St. Louis! For more walks and locations during this week go to..

http://thenewwsa.org/content/walk-williams-campaign

All money raised will support critical research initiatives and programs for individuals with Williams syndrome

Gateway to the future

The Williams Syndrome Association is putting on their 2010 National convention in St. Louis, July 7th-11th. Here they will have programs, activities and speakers for all ages! Not all details are posted but to stay updated and learn about previous conventions the WSA has held over the years visit the site below!

http://www.williams-syndrome.org/news/convention.html#programs

Patience, love and listening

This is a video I found that a group of college students put together to promote their special education program. The majority of it is movie clips from movies that have to do with people with special needs. It's kind of long but really neat!

Quote it!

Just some inspiring quotes I found that could pertain to special children!

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. – John Wooden


A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. – Walter Gagehot

Music

What all special education kids have in common is a love for music. The website http://educationworld.com/ has a link in which provides activities for teachers to provide for all ages of special education students such as, music, movies, notetaking and lots more. To view further lessons and activities for teachers and special education students click the link below!

http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/SpecialEducation.html

Education

When it comes to Williams Syndrome children or any type of children with mental disabilities they need certain accommodations in order for teacher's to get their lesson's taught. I found a website that gives some tips on things that teachers who are teaching special education students might use in order to keep their students attention. It gives a list of common indicators in special education students as well as a list of things they do to help each one of these indicators. To view some of these tips click on the link below!



http://www.teachervision.fen.com/special-education/new-teacher/48460.html

Faces of Williams Syndrome

One of the things that sets Williams Syndrome people apart from others is there physical features. Here is a video with some pictures of kids with Williams Syndrome.

Williams Syndrome as an Adult

In the article, "Cognitive functioning in adults with Williams Syndrome," Mr. Howlin focuses his book on the effects of Williams Syndrome in adults. It gives the differences mentally and physical from a child who has Williams Syndrome compared to an adult. This book mainly is research proving these differences along with information as to why the change later on in life.

Quality of Life

In the article, " Quality of Life for people with disabilities," Robert Cummins wrote this in hoping to help people find a better understanding of how the disabled look upon life. It gives examples of positive and negative feedback from research and models performed on physically and mentally challenged people. This article is helpful in my search for the views of how mentally challenged children view their life positively and negatively.

How They Cope

In the article, "Coping with Stress in Families with Children Who Have Mental Retardation: An Evaluation of the Double ABCX Model," Robert Orr focusing his points for people who are interested in learning how parents and other people cope with have a child with a mental retardation. In this article it gives personal experiences from parents who have not only a Williams Syndrome child but also parents who have children with different syndromes and mental retardation's. These parents also give points that they believe help them in their life with handling their children.

Williams Syndrome as a Child

In the article, "Williams Syndrome: Features in Late Childhood and Adolscents," Richard Pagon focuses on younger kids with Williams Syndrome. In this article it gives the features that you would only see in a child with Williams Syndrome, it gives the complications that younger kids with Williams Syndrome face in school and other information about their social lives and how different and how much harder it is for a Williams Syndrome child to be social with other children their age.

More in Depth

Another resourceful website is Williams-syndrome.org. This website is similar to the one listed in my previous post (autism-world.com) but it goes into quite about more detail about the effects Williams Syndrome has throughout the entire life. It also goes into more detail about the complications and the physical appearance differences in a Williams child. This website lists lots of relevant information about the life of person with Williams Syndrome.

http://williams-syndrome.org/

Autism

The online website Autism-world.com gives many articles involving Williams Syndrome. It gives very important and relevant information about Williams Syndrome as well as many other autism. This website includes articles of real life stories, it gives information on life expectancy of someone with Williams Syndrome, complications, genetic causes, history and treatments. This website is very useful if you're looking for information on Williams Syndrome or other autistic disabilities.

http://autism-world.com/

The Difference

In the article, "Configured and Local Processing of Faces in Children with Williams Syndrome," it gives all the different reason why children with Williams Syndrome look a little different in their facial features opposed to children without Williams Syndrome. In this article doctors run tests to see what it is really that discriminates children with Williams Syndrome. In the end I would not only like to show the similarities and differences emotionally with Williams kids but also physically.

A Different Perspective

In the article, "Parameters of Normality of Cultural Constructions of 'Mental Retardation' Perspective of Bengali Families," it gives the different pespectives of not only how Bengali families but just families in general handle having a child or sibling with mental retardation. This article shows what things these families do to try to keep their lives as normal as possible and their different outlooks on their childrens dissabilites as well as the challenges they face everyday.

They can do it too!

In the article "The Syntactical Ability of a Young Girl with Williams Syndrome," from the Journal of Special Education and Rehabilitation by Dianna Arapovikj it focuses mainly on a 9 year old girl who has williams syndrome. Throughout this article it gives examples of her being capable of doing certian things that a person without Williams Syndrome. It gives different strategies that help kids with Williams Syndrome have a better understanding of certain things. This article mainly focuses on this one girl and young kids with Williams Syndrome but it also gives examples involving adults and other ages as well!