EDMESTON – Pathfinder Village is the only residential community devoted completely to aiding those with Down syndrome in the United States and the organization, along with other mental health advocates, is drawing the public’s attention to October as National Down Syndrome Awareness Month.

“As it also happens to be National Disability Employment Awareness month too, and one really has a lot to do with the other,” said Pathfinder’s CEO, Paul C. Landers.

Landers said a key component in coping with a Down Syndrome disability is being able to socially integrate in the community and allowing residents to interact with other people. A big part of that development at Pathfinder has included countless community events and more than one third of their residents having regular jobs at local businesses.

“What the public should understand is the degree of progress we’ve made over the years in understanding the disability,” said Landers. To demonstrate the medical gains in the field, he explained that in 1989 the average life expectancy for a person with Down Syndrome was 29 years; today it is 60.

“Enhanced life expectancy and what we’re doing with that life is just as important,” said Landers.

Beside having a population that is about 5 to 10 percent above the national average of employed Down syndrome residents, Landers also said that beginning soon, the administration would be looking to take its residents’ autonomy even further by allowing them to own and operate their own businesses in and outside of the monitored community.

Unlike much of central New York’s disability housing, which assigns apartment homes to Down syndrome residents, Pathfinder has a dorm type setting that creates an atmosphere of a much more interactive community.

“We live in a world that’s changing faster than it ever has before and to try and enter it with a disability can be very difficult. In apartment housing, some hardly ever leave the four walls of their room, but here we have a community of similar lifestyles,” he said.