AttitudeLive - World Down Syndrome Conference

When Alex Sneddon was born his mum Bridget vowed she’d take him to the World Down Syndrome Conference when he turned 18. In 2006, Alex and Bridget traveled to Vancouver where, along with hundreds of other families, they had a chance to question the experts.

♪[intro music]♪

Alex is our Attitude reporter for the day.

He's primed and ready for action.

Hi! I'm Alex Snedden, live from
Canada - Vancouver --

I'm Alex Snedden, reporting from
Vancouver, Canada.

$$ [2006 World Down Syndrome
Conference: Vancouver, Canada]

When Alex was born, his mum,
Bridget, vowed she'd take Alex

to a conference when he turned 18,

and here he is.

Whoa! That looks good!

The conference had
something for everyone.

The teenagers hung out together,
getting to know one another.

Bridget took the opportunity to meet
and ask her own questions

of two world experts in Vancouver
as keynote speakers.

Bob Hoddap is a professor of special
education. He's also assistant director

of a families research program
at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center.

Each generation seems to be
exceeding the prior generation,

and it's really hard to know
if there are boundaries

or what those boundaries
might be if there are.

One of the things that's been just
amazing of this conference is

I've seen and heard several
adolescents and young adults with

Down Syndrome who are functioning
at incredibly high levels,

levels that people would not
have felt possible.

Next it was Alex's turn
to ask the questions

of Hollywood actress,
Andrea Friedman.

- Can I look?
- Sure, of course you can look!

- [laughter] Go ahead, you can look!

Andrea was a member of the
"Life Goes On" TV series in the 1990s,

and has made many other
TV guest appearances.

How did you become an actor?

$$ [Andrea Friedman, actress]

I was 14 years old, I took workshops
in acting, in West LA...

[Narrator] Speakers at the conference
all spoke of the tremendous advances

they've seen in young people
with Down Syndrome, perhaps

as a result of greater integration
into society than in the past.

Communication is a vital key to
these kids taking their place

in society. Experts have
focused research on this.

In the case of Down Syndrome
what we found is that there, a lot of

the building blocks aren't in place,
they have speech problems,

reduced intelligibility which
would make it

more difficult to communicate.

Who is your favorite actor?

- My favorite actor.
- Yes.

I would say... I got a couple of them.
One of them was David Hasselhoff,

from Baywatch. One of them is
Héctor Elizondo from Chicago Hope.

I think one way that we as parents
could help or as professionals

could help young people with
Down Syndrome begin to have

an appreciation of that is think of
activities in which the focus

is on other people's perspectives,
their knowledge, their feelings,

their emotions, and a couple of
useful forms for doing that

would be reading books together,

and that accomplishes a number of things.

It gets you to do a social activity,
it gets you to practice literacy skills,

and then you read books
and talk about why

characters are acting the way they are.

How could I become an actor?

You take acting workshops, and need
to study, and that's for a long time...

if you want to become a professional
actor, they give you a script,

then you have to memorize it.
That's how you become an actor.

Andrea's confidence as an actress
and in public is a great example of what

the future might hold for
all these young people,

including our Alex.

- Can you just --
- Entertain us!