The Movie 'And Your Name Is Jonah'

…..And Your Name Is Jonah In the movie, And Your Name Is Jonah (1979), there is a family that is going through some tough times. Jenny and Danny Corelli (Jonah’s parents) are seen walking into an institution to pick up their son, Jonah. There had been some confusion on the diagnosis; it appears that Jonah was diagnosed as mentally retarded. Jenny kept questioning and questioning if the new diagnosis was in fact correct, and was just dumbfounded. They could not believe that Jonah had been in the institution for three years for being mentally retarded. They arrived at home where the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were throwing a welcome home party. They were just having cake and music was playing in the background and Jonah …show more content…
As time progresses, Jenny is trying to help Jonah speak and is having a difficult time with this. And Jonah continues going to school and is struggling during this time. During the movie, you can see that Jonah is attached to grandpa, as he visits him at work at the market. They always do things together, even though neither one of them know any signs or any form of communication. Grandpa loves him and Jonah loves grandpa. One day, grandpa has a heart attack and passes away. And Jonah is not sure what to make of this, as he does not understand what is going on. Shortly after the death of grandpa, Jonah steals money from mom’s purse and hops on a city bus to go visit grandpa but he is no longer there. After he discovers grandpa is not there, he wanders off and shortly after that the police get a hold of him. He is taken to a hospital and because he is unable to speak and was acting belligerent they strapped him down. As his mother finds out where he is, she walks into the hospital just in time to see him being strapped down and is devastated; she demands that they release him, as he is just deaf not retarded. But as time goes on, Jenny, Jonah’s mother, is taking him to speech therapy and sees a deaf couple with a deaf child. She goes chasing after them on the sidewalk to find out some information. They inform …show more content…
I am not sure how things would have been handled; although, I believe that they probably were not big advocators in stressing that the parents have the right to choose what is best for their child or they were never assigned a social worker. I believe that in this day and age, there would be issues on how it was handled. I would ask the family what their understanding of the functioning of the human ear, what happened, what did the previous doctor/audiologist say. As a social worker, I would have advocated that the child needed a proper hearing test, and determine what kind of hearing loss it is or how it happened; for example, was it a disease like German measles or medications that could have caused the deafness in the child. I would ask the parents to tell me their life story, what they can remember or think of in terms of his deafness. I think also, it would have benefited the family to have counseling support, to help them with their child and themselves. It would have given them more of an idea of what to expect. I would schedule home visits with the family to see how they were interacting with the child and assist them in learning/teaching them sign language if they choose. I would also counsel them on the pros and cons of attending public schools and deaf school. Education wise, it would be better to attend public schools and have deaf education classes in the