Changing Perspectives

Dr. Kiesling’s presentation was very engaging and attention-grabbing.  It was a moving topic that I think he covered fully and respectfully.  The very beginning of his presentation about institutions stuck out to me because I know a man who is about 68 now whose parents were told to institutionalize him and they said no.  I had not thought about it until this guest lecture but his parents were at the forefront of saying no to institutions and changing the perspective of people with disabilities.  They stuck up for themselves and their son in choosing to say no and keep him at home. 
            I also liked how he kept saying at the end that we can’t tell people what they won’t be able to do in twenty years because we don’t know what they will be capable of doing.  For example, that mother thought her son would not be able to go to college but Dr. Kiesling told her about the STAR program at CBU and she started crying because there was an opportunity for her son that she did not know about and those opportunities will keep growing as time goes on.  Legislation and technological advances are changing every year.  We do not know what adaptations will be created or what people will be able to do when we take them out of the boxes we put them in.  It is important to be open minded especially in the field that we are going into and that is the message I got from our guest speaker.