Special and Gifted Children:
Dilemmas on the ‘Different’

It’s that time of the year when we harbor the fondest hopes for our most cherished ones – our children. It is in this spirit that the PCIJ opens the year 2011 with a three-part report on the dilemmas we face when dealing with “different” children, or the “special” and the “gifted” ones among them.

It is by now de rigueur, and politically correct, to avoid referring to them as “abnormal” — a word laced with the bias of the majority who are supposed to be “normal.” Societies in both the developed West and the developing East have since launched programs and services catering to the special needs of these children. However, if a nation has only limited resources, should the community devote more to the special children, or to the gifted? Indeed, how could we know how best to care for them?

But more than just a question of logistics, to the families who nurture and care for these children, many other dilemmas unfold daily – burden, blessing, joy, pain all the same most of the time. And in between, too, these families have to contend with people who respond differently, sometimes harshly, to children who are “different.”

In part 1, PCIJ Fellow Charlene C. Tordesillas tells the story of Sammy, the youngest of four siblings but who at 34 remains his family’s baby. Sammy was born with Down Syndrome, a genetic condition caused by the presence of a 24th chromosome.

Medical anthropologist and Inquirer columnist Michael L. Tan also reflects on the dilemmas that present themselves when dealing with special and gifted children.