Introducing Self-Advocate, Rebecca Page

Introducing... Becky!

One of the first questions I get when some asks about Becky is, “did I know she had Down syndrome before she was born?” and the answer is, “No”.  In fact, when the nurse whisked her away, I wondered what was going on – everything seemed normal…  Soon, my doctor came back into the room and announced to me that he was pretty sure my tiny baby had Down syndrome. When they brought her back to me, she seemed normal… she looked like a baby… she acted like a baby… she cried and she wanted to eat like a baby.  I had no experience with anyone with Down syndrome before, so I wasn’t sure what it all meant.

  Back in my room, the routine was the normal baby routine.  Feeding, sleeping and changing diapers are pretty standard even for Down syndrome babies.  When my pediatrician came in, I thought I might get an explanation of what Down syndrome would mean for my daughter and our family.  I was disappointed in his explanation.  Everything will be slower and we don’t know how much – it varies.  But he told me to take her home and treat her “normally” and we have done that ever since.

  We started therapy at 1 month old and met the best Developmental Therapist there is!  She taught me that Becky would be able to do things, but that she would not do them automatically like “normal” kids.  It was our job to help her to learn each step in the development toward whatever she wanted to do.  We had to break down the steps into bite size pieces that Becky could learn. She taught me that early on, Becky would be able to keep up with the developmental milestones in life, but as she got older, the gap would continually widen. I also learned that Becky would be very habitual and that I wanted her to learn things right the first time and practice them right because once a pattern was set, it would be hard to break.  The early intervention speech therapist helped us to do things that would help with her speech later in life.  All the therapists were so beneficial to us in those early years.  Everything the therapists did for 1/2 hour twice a week, I did daily at home all the time.  This was the beginning of Becky’s home schooling.  

  As with our other children, of whom I had 3 others with disabilities, we never believed that God would disable their ability to please Him.  Character first training always applied to our disabled children the same as it applied to everyone else.  Loving and serving God was and still is first and foremost.

  After a year and a half of public school “special education”, we brought Becky back home and continued the work I had always done with her.  Becky was academically home schooled with “normal” kids from then on.  She plays piano, is a green belt in Kenpo Karate, downhill skis with Special Olympics, reads and writes at about 4th grade level.  She gave a speech at her graduation ceremony. She told her class that they needed to be servant leaders like Jesus.  To us, she’s pretty normal.  She thinks she’s normal, she just can’t drive. 

  All of Becky’s life I have tried to remember the first pediatrician’s advice to keep life as “normal” as possible.  I have also remembered the Developmental Therapist’s words that as she gets older, the gap will get wider.  Pushing her to grow and excel within her limits gets harder and harder, but we know that God knows the plans He has even for her, plans for a future and a hope.  Graduation was a hard milestone as we watched all those successful home schoolers go off to college…, but little did we know, we would soon be inspired to do the same. 

  At the National Down Syndrome Congress Conference this year, we were convinced that Becky too, could go to college.  She has started Community Education classes at the local community college and will hopefully begin regular classes there next semester.  She recently brought the message from the NDSC conference to the Treasure Valley at this year’s Buddy Walk where she gave another speech in front of 1200 people!  I think we have found her calling – Self-Advocate Speaker.  

   If you are interested in having Becky speak to your group, email her at writeapage@gmail.com  or visit her on facebook at www.facebook.com/beckypage3.  To listen to her speeches, go to www.youtube.com/user/lostholman.