An e-mail:

Thank you for highlighting this woman’s site and her mission. My wife and I have two children, Faith and her little brother James. Faith was born with Down syndrome (not diagnosed prenatally, though in our case it would not have mattered). She is now 2 ½ years old, and every time she is evaluated by her Early Intervention caseworkers (approximately every six months), she comes in within the three month range of typical kids her age in almost every area (and never more than six months behind in the one or two areas where she might need more help). Currently, she knows the entire alphabet, and she can count to ten. Doctors told us she most likely would not walk or talk before the age of two, and she was saying “mama” and “dada” before she was 9 months old, had a good dozen words or so at 12 months, and her vocabulary is right in line with typical kids her age right now. She walked at 16 months, which was her longest milestone delay, at the low end of the normal range of 10-18 months for typical kids; all other milestones have occurred exactly in the middle of whatever range they would for typical kids.
Her EI caseworkers would be the first to tell you that they have little to do with her progress, and that all of the credit goes to her conservative parents, who are fortunate to work from home, but also willing to take the time to work hard with her and help her to excel as best she can.