I Am Sam Intellectual Disability
Title: No Boundaries
Name: Jodie Chen
Course: PSYC 4321 | Due Date: 4/20/15
Topic: Intellectual Disability
Movie: I Am Sam
Sam Dawson, portrayed by Sean Penn in the movie “I Am Sam”, is an individual struggling with an intellectual disability. He is a pleasant, hardworking, and enthusiastic man who tends to customers at a coffee shop. His duties consists of cleaning up spills, greeting customers, and filling canisters with new packets of sugar. Upon leaving the hospital, Sam and his newborn daughter are abandoned by the homeless woman who claimed “she never wanted a child with him, she just needed a place to sleep”. After seeking assistance from his neighbor and closest friends, Sam is able to raise the child for the subsequent seven years. As his daughter Lucy, portrayed by Dakota Fanning, grows older, Sam has difficulty keeping up with her increasing learning curve. Lucy even goes as far as stating that “she doesn’t want to read words that her father cannot”. Lucy’s teacher notices that she has begun stunting her own mental development in fear of leaving her …show more content…
Intellectual disability (ID) was formerly referred to as “mental retardation”. The recent revisions for this terminology are currently available in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5., 2013). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines an intellectual disability as a limitation to one’s capacity to acquire and comprehend information at the expected level and function during daily responsibilities (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5., 2013). This signifies that the individual is cognitively performing below that of what is expected of someone from their age group or cultural
Name: Jodie Chen
Course: PSYC 4321 | Due Date: 4/20/15
Topic: Intellectual Disability
Movie: I Am Sam
Sam Dawson, portrayed by Sean Penn in the movie “I Am Sam”, is an individual struggling with an intellectual disability. He is a pleasant, hardworking, and enthusiastic man who tends to customers at a coffee shop. His duties consists of cleaning up spills, greeting customers, and filling canisters with new packets of sugar. Upon leaving the hospital, Sam and his newborn daughter are abandoned by the homeless woman who claimed “she never wanted a child with him, she just needed a place to sleep”. After seeking assistance from his neighbor and closest friends, Sam is able to raise the child for the subsequent seven years. As his daughter Lucy, portrayed by Dakota Fanning, grows older, Sam has difficulty keeping up with her increasing learning curve. Lucy even goes as far as stating that “she doesn’t want to read words that her father cannot”. Lucy’s teacher notices that she has begun stunting her own mental development in fear of leaving her …show more content…
Intellectual disability (ID) was formerly referred to as “mental retardation”. The recent revisions for this terminology are currently available in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5., 2013). The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines an intellectual disability as a limitation to one’s capacity to acquire and comprehend information at the expected level and function during daily responsibilities (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5., 2013). This signifies that the individual is cognitively performing below that of what is expected of someone from their age group or cultural