The Other Sister Sparknotes

Summary
A movie, “The Other Sister,” is about two mentally challenged people name Carla Tate and Daniel. Carla Tate, a 24-year old woman, return to San Francisco from a sheltered boarding school after long years. After rejoining with her overprotective mother Elizabeth, a gentle and thoughtful father Radley, and two young and older sisters, Carla announces that she wants to attend a local school called Bay Area Polytech, a normal vocational school. Nevertheless of her mother Elizabeth’s disapproval, Radley supports her to pursue her dream. On the first day, Carla meets a boy named Danny and helps him when someone calls him “retarded.” They both get close to each other and fall in love quickly. Carla envied Danny for living on his own, so

she tells her parents that she wants to get her own apartment. Despite her mother’s overprotective and extreme reluctant reaction, Carla persuades to live in her own apartment in the middle of San Francisco.
The relationship between Carla and Danny gets deeper since they have similar ways of thinking, and develops to have sexual activity.

During the Christmas party with Carla’s family and Danny, he drinks a lot to be brave enough to show his love to Carla. When he talks about their first sexual experience up on the stage in the party, Carla breaks down to tears and starts screaming at everyone to stop laughing. Even though Danny does not intend to embarrass Carla, she refuses to see her and Danny runs away. On the wedding day of Carla’s engaged older sister, Caroline, Danny surprises Carla at the church and asks Carla to marry

him.
Everyone supports Carla’s marriage except her mother, Elizabeth, who is unsure if Danny is trustworthy enough to marry with her. Then, Carla declares that she will marry without Elizabeth’s consent and gets very upset over Elizabeth’s dominance. At the end, Elizabeth finally relents and comes to the wedding and in the middle of the cheering crowd Danny and Carla go off to their Honeymoon.
CDis Portrayal
The communication disorder is dealt in the movie “the Other Sister”. Carla Tate, a young woman is mentally challenged, and people call that mental retardation (MR). Carla’s odd pronunciation and her slow movements on her lips tell the difference from normal people talking.
At the beginning of the movie when Carla was about seven, she starts yanking and screaming at the dinner table because Elizabeth has told her to eat with a fork, not with a knife. Then she starts banging on the door saying, “leave me alone” with inarticulate voice. Carla had no control over her behavior. She seems to have a speech and language problem since the MR affects on intelligence and low IQ. Luckily, Carla’s mental retardation was well treated in the boarding school in the early age. Since the disorder should be diagnosed before 18, Carla had cope with her disorder amazingly. When she passed the regular exam in regular class with regular teacher, she was so excited. However, Daniel who failed on the test was so upset that he starts breaking down and burst into tears. First, he blinked a lot when talking and stuttering got worse. Daniel’s background is not described with details, but considering he had an alcoholic father and divorced parents it is clear that he did not receive better special education compared to Carla’s. The disorder of Daniel’s is more severe than Carla’s because hers is diagnosed in early stage.
There are some possibilities to treat MR, not to cure. Similar to Carla, the period of special education and family support are great treatment to accept MR.
CDis accuracy or inaccuracy

Speech is formed through the chains. Starting from one’s ear, sensory nerves go to brain, which touches motor nerves. Then those ring vocal muscles that create sound waves. Other ear catch the sound waves and the sensory nerves bring the waves to the brain. The is the path of speaking and listening. In the course when we talked about the communication disorder, we learned about how every part does its own job to pursue one goal in neuro linguistic aspect. Even though the course separated speech and language disorder, I think intellectual disability deals with both. Mental retardation is not specifically dealt in the textbook of “The Talking Brain.” Additionally, we did not have a topic specifically dealt with the mental retardation or intellectual disability in communication disorder. However, we dealt with speech and language disorder. Since language disorders are found in children with reading and writing problems, which Carla has some difficulties with; mental retardation is related to language. Since speech disorder deals with stuttering, which Carla clearly shows her slowness in speech, mental retardation is related to speech.

Coping with CDis and its effect in daily life

Carla copes with her CDis with pursuing what she wants to do. She is an ambitious young woman who wants to go to a vocational public school, get her own apartment and live off on her own, and get married with a person she met in school. Even though her mother, Elizabeth said she cannot possibly keep them up by herself, Carla accomplished all with the belief that she can keep up. The independence she gained raised her dignity and she was able to cope with her mental retardation. Also, she copes with her CDis with her family. Especially her father, Radley is extremely supportive on what she wants to do and he takes the role of soothing a rough relationship of Carla and Elizabeth. His patience and supportive back make Carla to cope with her disorder easier. The CDis of Carla does not really affect her daily life. Surprisingly, she is trained so well in a boarding school she stayed in for ten years. Carla clearly delivers her message with complete sentence and does not stutter much in life. The relationships with her family or friends did not seem very difficult since there were no stuttering or language problems.
Furthermore, Danny is not good at coping with his CDis.

He kept saying that he is dumb when he failed the only class he was taking and stuttered more as he was breaking down. However, when he meets Carla, who copes well with her disorder and treats herself with respect, Danny slowly changes and eventually learns how to cope with his mental retardation. Unfortunately, Danny’s CDis affects his life quite often. He stuttered a lot, and it took some time to finish his sentence. Also, since he perceived himself as a person with severe mental retardation, he did not have enough confidence love himself. However, the relationship with Carla and Ernie seemed fine since they both understood where he is standing

in.
Portrayal of Carla’s and Danny’s CDis

The communication disorder that Carla Tate had was portrayed with respect. Raised from a rich family, she was sent to a special school and got good educations. She knew how to be brave, how to be comfortable in front of others by being honest, and when to make best choices.
However, the communication disorder of Danny McMahoh, at first, was represented with humor. In Polytechnic School, someone called him “retarded” and laughed behind his back. His mental retardation showed as a humor to the audience. Additionally, when Danny suffered from a lack of self-regard, he was shown as a victim or someone to pity. Since he knew that he stuttered more and had much severe symptoms compared to Carla’s mental retardation, he kept reminding himself that Carla is much greater than him.
I think whether the individual with CDis portrayed depends on the way they think of their disorder. If they think their CDis pitiful, people pity them; when they think their CDis deserves respect, people respect them.