Cerebral Palsy, along with Down’s Syndrome, Mental Retardation, Hearing Impairment and Visual Impairment are probably one of those classified as “obvious” special needs people.
Why? These conditions can be recognized readily by those who know how.
Cerebral palsy can be recognized by a number of symptoms like spasms, inability to move and maintain balance and posture. They lack muscle control.
Some of those with cerebral palsy have difficulty walking and doing tasks like writing and/or feeding themselves and/or dressing up. There are those who are hyperactive. There are also those who have seizure disorders. There are those who have learning and developmental problems.
I remember my former student C. He was diagnosed with this condition but this child is so sociable and so willing to learn that he was able to learn how to read, do basic math drills and even write sentences. His writing skills was not that good in terms of control but he tries hard to “write within the lines” in his notebooks. He talks with a lot of articulation errors but still he “wills” himself to enunciate the sounds so that I would understand what he means to tell me.
This is not a progressive condition but as time goes by and therapy services are not given to the person with cerebral palsy, the developmental milestones go further away from the age-appropriate skills.It is important then to get the services that will help these individuals to cope with minimum supervision.
What causes cerebral palsy?
The causes are not known but these cases are linked to the health history of both the mother and child as well as injuries and/or accidents before, during and after childbirth. Immediately after birth the diagnosis can be made but there are also instances that later diagnosis can be done.
This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 9:42 am and is filed under Being a (Special Ed) Teacher, Challenge Yourself, Information, Teaching Techniques, mental retardation, special education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
