On March 21st people all over globe celebrated the annual World Down Syndrome Day. I feel bad for them. I get to celebrate it every day.
HEY there everyone, it’s me Jason Arnio aka The Number 1 Grindaman. My identical twin Matt Ribaudo aka The Number 2 Grindaman asked me if I wanted to write an article about Down syndrome for the new & approved issue of BostonMan Magazine and I said “O YES YES!” So here it is.
I was lucky enough to be one of the approximately 5,700 people born with Down syndrome each year. That’s about one out of every 640 babies on average.
On March 21st everyone is celebrating World Down Syndrome Day, but that’s kind of a new thing. It was started out in Australia in 2006 and then the United Nations started doing it in 2012 and next thing you know everyone else was doing it once they started seeing it on social media.
I always thought World Down Syndrome Day was on November 12th (my birthday) but apparently I was wrong about that one. I guess the reason Australia picked March 21 is because it is supposed to represent the three copies of chromosome 21 that individuals with Down syndrome have instead of the usual two. So the 3 is for March and the 21 is for the day.
Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know about that one. I didn’t know it either. Sometimes when someone or even somebody explains why they did something I just nod my head and say, “O REALLY NOW.”
Every year Australia picks a new thing to focus on for World Down Syndrome Day and sometimes I think they pick funny topics but this time they picked a good one. The theme for this year is “Improve our Support Systems.”
I liked this one because lately The Number 2 Grindaman (Matt Ribaudo) and our other brother The Number 3 Grindaman (Anthony Faucera) have been slacking a little bit on getting all of the things done that I need them to do each night so we might need some more support systems here. I’ll explain this one more later.
Even though World Down Syndrome Day is new, Down syndrome has actually been around forever.
For centuries, people with Down syndrome have been alluded to in art, literature, and science. It wasn’t until the late nineteenth century, however, that John Langdon Down, an English physician, published an accurate description of a person with Down syndrome.
It was this scholarly work, published in 1866, that earned Mr. Down the recognition as the “father” of the syndrome. Although other people had previously recognized the characteristics of the syndrome, it was Mr. Down who described the condition as a distinct and separate entity.
In recent history, advances in medicine and science have enabled researchers to investigate the characteristics of people with Down syndrome. In 1959, the French physician Jérôme Lejeune identified Down syndrome as a chromosomal condition. O OUI OUI Mr. Lejeune!
Instead of the usual 46 chromosomes present in each cell, Mr. Lejeune observed 47 in the cells of individuals with Down syndrome. It was later determined that an extra partial or whole copy of chromosome 21 results in the characteristics associated with Down syndrome.
In the year 2000, an international team of scientists successfully identified and catalogued each of the approximately 329 genes on chromosome 21. This accomplishment opened the door to great advances in Down syndrome research.
That’s the boring stuff though. Here’s some of the fun stuff.
People that have the gift of Down syndrome are some of the happiest, most fun, creative & imaginative, best looking, loyal and loving people you will ever meet. Speaking of loving.. the ladies love Grindamans! O YES YES!
And the ladies REALLLLY LOVE the GRINDA MOVES of The Number 1 Grindaman!
Our brains are also more tapped in to NeuroMovement thanks to our extra chromosome. Everyone has six senses. The first five we are all familiar with, but it’s the sixth sense – the kinesthetic sense – which is the sense of movement that people with Down syndrome are really good at.
It is the sensory input that comes to the brain from our muscles, tendons, joints, internal organs, and pressure. It is the most fundamental sense we’re born with that provides the brain with the opportunity to organize and learn voluntary movement and associate it with the other five senses and to cognition. The kinesthetic sense, combined with neuroplasticity, is the foundation and primary focus of NeuroMovement.
I never understand when someone says they feel bad for me or for other people with Down syndrome.
An in depth study recently conducted by the National Down Syndrome Society asked people with Down syndrome (young adult and older) about their self-perception so that their information could be shared with new and expectant parents of children with Down syndrome.
And the survey says! (I love the Family Feud), nearly 99% of people with Down syndrome said that they were happy with their lives; 97% liked who they are; and 96% liked how they look.
That’s pretty dddddddddddamn good if you ask me! I bet if you did the same survey with a bunch of people on social media with all of those filters and AI pictures 96% wouldn’t say they like the way they look.
Actually that’s one thing that gets me a little mad. I hate it when people ask me what filters I use on social media or where I get my Botox done. I swear I don’t do either! I’m just naturally this good looking!
I met my identical twin Matt Ribaudo in the 4th grade when his family moved up to Connecticut from Maryland. We became brothers right away. It was the first time I ever met someone that looked and acted exactly like me. All these years later, we’re still just the same as were back then.
I love WWE, the New England Patriots, Alabama ROLL TIDE ROLL, Tupac Shakur and The Bold and The Beautiful. I also love watching music videos and I’ve never lost a dance off in my entire life. There is currently a patent pending on my dance moves which are called THE GRINDAMAN MOVES.
I also am in charge of a lot of important things that the Number 2 and Number 3 Grindamans help me with every night. We’ve been in a little bit of a slump lately though.
The Number 3 Grindaman helps me with the storylines for WWE but there has been some interference somewhere and not all of our storylines have been happening the way they are supposed to each week.
The Number 2 Grindaman helps me with the NFL Draft, scouting all of the players, and his job is to tell Robert Kraft which trades I want to make for the Patriots. But the Patriots haven’t been listening to me the past couple of years as much as they used to.
That’s why this year I liked the “improve our support systems” theme for World Down Syndrome Day. If the Number 2 and Number 3 Grindamans just follow my lead I can help them improve the support systems and we can get the WWE and the Patriots back on track.
Thank you everybody for reading my article. I hope to meet everyone at a BostonMan Magazine event next time I come up to visit in Boston! Peace and love from The Number 1 Grindaman!
