Blues Clues

Josh Blue, a rising star comedian born in Cameroon and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota,
has lived with spastic cerebral palsy (with the stiff muscles characteristic of hypertonia) since
infancy; childbirth complications necessitated his evacuation to the United States. This
corroborates Dr. Marilyn Friends summary of the disorders origins. Though often unknown,
possible causes include genetic abnormality, premature or difficult birth, fetal alcohol or drug
exposure, fetal rubella exposure, and/or fetal malnourishment. If an infant is injured during birth
or abused thereafter, cerebral palsy can also result (Friend, 2014, p. 424). Blue readily affirms
that he has not let his disorder rule his life. He married in 2007 and is now the single father of
two, according to his website, www.joshblue.com.
What might K-12 schooling have been for Josh Blue (now 36 years of age)? A point in
his favor was being schooled in Minnesota twenty years ago, when the state was ranked by
Education Week as among the top three for schooling in the U.S. when evaluated according to
the publications quality of teaching, school climate and equity grades. The state reported in 1997
that out of an overall student population of 821,693, 10% had disabilities. The state consistently
earned good grades for its teachers; indeed, its attention to teaching quality was ranked the
highest in the nation by a then-recent national commission on teaching. However, Minnesotas
school climate grade was a D+ which begs the question of how flexible and inclusive classrooms
truly were at that time (Quality counts, 1997, pp. 139-141). Friend notes that, currently, for
some students with physical and health disabilities, no discussion of inclusion is needed at all.
Their special needs relate to their health or physical capabilities, and few other accommodations
are neededthere is no reason to separate them from their peers (Friend, 2014, p. 441). The
question again arises if this was the prevailing wisdom in Minnesota twenty years ago. Perhaps

so since the 1975 Education of Handicapped Children Act had already transitioned in 1990 to the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and was amended twice in 1997 and 2004 (Friend,
2014, p. 192).
Friend encourages us to remember that "these students are unique...A student who has
significant cerebral palsy may be academically gifted" (Friend, 2014, p. 424). It is
straightforward enough to surmise this being the case with Blue. Since the days of medieval
court jesters1 (and likely before), comedians require an extraordinary sense of timing, verbal
agility, wit and significant cognitive ability. Sometimes those with cerebral palsy are counted in
IDEA terms "in the very broad category of orthopedic impairments". Though they may be
simultaneously included among those with intellectual disabilities, traumatic brain injuries or
[other] multiple disabilities", it is important to underscore Friends admonition that,
"Professionals need to be sure that they do not let the overall physical limitations of these
students influence their perceptions of the students' abilities" (Friend, 2014, p. 424).
As it turns out, we do not have to guess about Josh Blues school experience. An
excellent article published in 2012 by the American Academy of Neurology features a wellwritten, thorough interview with Blue and includes his in-depth reflections on childhood2. The
following comments concerning his classroom experiences are especially revealing:

1 Will Somers (d. 1560), the renowned court jester to Englands King Henry VIII , was among the few
who (thanks to his incisive wit, human insight, and sensitive timing) was able to tell the mercurial, eviltempered king that which for others often constituted treason and subsequent execution. Indeed, historian
Susannah Lipscomb observes that, Their [the fools] folly was wiser than wisdom. This was the reason
for the court fools authority and favour, their rich clothing and even, possibly, their shaven heads,
echoing the tonsures of the religious and suggests that many perhaps all court fools in the early
Tudor period were natural fools, or what we today would characterise as people with learning
disabilities and that explains much about their prominent position (Lipscomb).
2 I have included my favorite excerpts in an appendix below.

Many people mistakenly assume that a child with physical disabilities also has cognitive
disabilities, Blue says. Until the fourth grade, he was in special education classes in school. But
one or two periods a day, Blue and his classmates would attend lessons with the rest of their
schoolmates. By the time we got to fourth grade, they realized that we were just as smartif not
smarterthan the able-bodied kids, so they mainstreamed us, he says.
Blue was moved into the non-specialized classes together with four or five of his peers, which he
regards as a huge step in his life. The biggest challenges, according to Blue's mom, came from the
teachers, who were unsure of how to accommodate disabled students. But really we just needed a
little adaptive help, and we could do everything everyone else did, Blue says.

Blue often warns audiences they are going to hell because they are laughing at him
(Blue, 2006a). That is another jest, of course, a heavenly one, really; I know I, among many
others, are laughing with Josh Blue, very appreciatively and very grateful for his courage,
wisdom and example.

References
Friend, M. P. (2014). Special education: Contemporary perspectives for school professionals (4th ed.).
Boston, MA: Pearson Education.
Josh Blue at Last Comic Standing! (2006, June 8). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qMSrpZi_6WM
Josh Blue, official website Josh Blue Comedy. (2006). Retrieved from http://joshblue.com/
Lipscomb, S. (August 2011). All the king's fools. History Today, 61(8). Retrieved from
http://www.historytoday.com/suzannah-lipscomb/all-king%E2%80%99s-fools
Quality counts: A report card on the condition of public education in the 50 states. (1997, January 22).
Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/archives/QC97full.pdf
Rukovets, O. (2012, October/November). Serious laughs: Comedian Josh Blue gets seriousWell, sort of
About his cerebral palsy. Retrieved from http://patients.aan.com/resources/neurologynow/?
event=home.showArticle&id=ovid.com%3A%2Fbib%2Fovftdb%2F01222928-201208050-00018

Appendix
Excerpts from Serious laughs: Comedian Josh Blue gets seriousWell, sort ofAbout his cerebral
palsy:

I am lucky in that the amount of palsy that I do have is bearable, the comedian acknowledges.
In addition, his thinking skills are unaffected. Two-thirds of individuals with CP will be
intellectually impaired to some degree. The reason is that many parts of the brain may be
affected in CP, says Dr. Goldstein.

The more movement problems a person experiences, the greater the likelihood of cognitive
impairment, according to Dr. Russman.

In the classroom, children with associated cognitive difficulties should be evaluated for
intellectual function independently of any motor or movement symptoms related to their CP, Dr.
Russman adds. And then educators can say, Okay, how do we implement a program taking into
consideration that the muscles don't work well and/or the child cannot write very well?' Many
different aids to learning can be developed, especially in this age of computers, says Dr.
Russman. Since communication problems may occur with CP, assistance can include the use of
sign language, communication boards (photographs, symbols, words/phrases, or a combination of
all threewhich make language visible), or verbal recognition software on a computer.

Blue never needed to learn how to spell growing up: I just dictated to someone else and they
wrote it down, so I'm still a horrible speller. He now uses Dragon Dictate, a speech-enabled voice
recognition software, on his iPhone. It's been a huge breakthrough, Blue says, for helping him
access sites like Twitter and Facebook. I can actually put in things that I want to say instead of
depending on somebody else. It's pretty liberating, Blue says.

While in transition from specialized to mainstream classes, humor became a welcome outlet for
the young Blue. Some of his friends had a harder time with the switch, he says, but at that age,
people aren't necessarily being mean, they're just ignorant, Blue believes. It just was a long road
to home, letting people know that, Yeah, I'm physically disabled, but I'm right there with you on
everything else,' he says.

Blue's parents did not treat him differently from his other siblings, the comedian recalls.
Obviously there were some special needs that I had. But it was just Oh, my brother has to go to
basketball practice' and Josh has to go to therapy. [Physical and occupational therapy] were only
activities I had to go to, he says.

And the family similarities seem to outweigh the differences. For example, Blue and his family
members share an extraordinary aptitude for language; he is fluent in both French and Wolof, the
native language of Senegal. Blue's dad speaks 13 languages. All my siblings speak at least three
and they're not the same languages, he says. It's one of our weird gifts.

For many adolescents, junior high school is a complicated period of transitionand being cut
from the school's soccer team then was a particularly heartbreaking experience for Blue. I just

wanted to play soccer and be around my friends, he says. My feeling was, if you just let me
come to practice, all I can do is get better!

After graduating college, Blue bumped into a woman with CP who swam in the Paralympics. I
had never even heard of it [the Paralympics]. She saw me playing soccer, and said, You know
there's a team for you, right?

But it was only when he went to college that he realized comedy came more easily to him than
to his peers. When you're a kid, you don't know that other people aren't as funny or quick as you.
There was just a moment when other people said, Man, you're funny all the time!'

Suddenly, it clicked. Blue gained momentum doing shows on the college circuit. Soon after, he
hit the big time when he won NBC reality series Last Comic Standing in the summer of 2006.
(See Neurology Now's previous article on Blue's feat at bit.ly/RRtIPY.).