The folks at Diversified Services weren't the only ones wearing wild socks today, but they were part of an international movement.

Thursday was Down syndrome awareness day, and local parent Tim Yates discussed the syndrome with staff and clients at Diversified Services in the afternoon.

“There’s quite a few folks that participate in the services here that have Down syndrome and there’s quite a few folks here in the community who aren’t here today that have Down syndrome,” Yates said. “We have actually what seems to be a fairly significant population of people with Down syndrome in Moose Jaw."

Yates had some demonstrations, like trying to talk with a paperclip on one’s tongue, as part of his presentation.

“I talked a little bit about the number of people with Down syndrome in Saskatchewan, and the country, and the world,” Yates said. “There’s roughly around 45,000 people with Down syndrome in Canada. Then I talked about some of the things that make people with Down syndrome different or special than the rest of us. That’s physical abilities, cognitive abilities and their speech and language abilities.”

Yates said that the main message from the presentation was to give them a little bit of extra time to process things that you say and to remember things that they know.