There are many unknowns in the land of Cerebral Palsy, CP. What we do know that it is a disability of movement. It can effect a small region of the body like one hand to the whole body. It effects muscle tone, mobility, and motor skills. It normal occurs from an incident during or before birth but can occur up to three to five years of life. It happens when there is damage to the motor control centers of the developing brain. There is no cure but some therapy options can help. Depending on the region effected  treatment options may include: special equipment, therapy, surgery, and alternative medicines.

The first signs of it are often noticed in babies and toddlers by missing milestones such as sitting, crawling, walking, or using both hands with out preference. When Cerebral Palsy is not with another preexisting condition, warning signs can easily be missed. I know from the cases I have worked with if it was simply a mobility issue it was diagnosed closer to a year or after. The cases I have seen earlier diagnosed had shunts or coexisting other health impairments. Once a parent suspects and issue, they should go to their doctor right away to start on the process to receiving services and getting their child the help they need. I have seen cases where a child was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and as an adult no one would of guessed it. This does not mean your child will be completely cured, just that all hope is not lost. So follow up on therapy and equipment use, and push your child, there are great things they can overcome.

Cerebral Palsy can often coincide with other conditions. There can often be speech issues, mental retardation, pain, sleep disorders, seizures,  feeding issues, learning disabilities, toileting issues, and behavioral issue. This does not mean that if your child has CP that they will have these other issues; they are simply things to look out for so that they too can receive treatment right away.

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Physical health impairments, PHI, are another disability that might affect your family or those you know. To help me to understand the needs of those with PHI and in turn help me to be a better teacher and civilian, I wanted to do some personal research to what is more specifically entailed with those effected by PHI. The thing I found, in trying to better comprehend Physical Health Impairments, is that they effect individuals differently, so it is important to understand the individual’s history, needs, and desires. This means reading background information, consulting prior teachers/doctors/etc, and being ready to adapt new ideas to the classroom and home environments, so that the child can be included and prosper within the classroom as well as all areas of life. My experiences thus far with those with PHI have mostly been out in society and some in early intervention. I have found that I find it easiest to problem solve how to best help the individual by putting myself into their shoes. In early intervention, we primarily worked on exploring their home environments through textile play and promotion of using/building other muscles to promote overall movement, but as they grow older their needs evolve and can become more entailed. It is important to regularly revisit the goals for the individual and make sure that the goals are not only realistic but also true challenges that help broaden the child’s future. Because PHI is such a broad term, it is important to look at the individual and brainstorm their current challenges, future challenges, and the greatest way to minimize both of these. Here are some items to think about:

• Accessibility- what in their daily life might be hard to access
• Endless Possibilities- What are the dreams and hopes for this child
• Friendships- Who are they going to bond with and enrich themselves socially with
• Self-confidence- We could all use a little more and these kids especially need it
• Living Life- In the end it is most important that everyone lives their lives to the fullest with no regrets so help push them to reach those high goals and be the best version of themselves

I would love to hear more about your personal experiences, so feel free to leave a comment

Those with visual impairments can find many challenges in education and in their social environments. By educators being prepared and open toward including those with these impairments, they can help to bridge the gap in the children’s development. Children can also find help through specialized programs and organizations. It is important for the teachers, parents, and students to explore all of their options available to the child and pick the best environment for the child in order to maximize their education and quality of life.

Visual Impairments

Sight involves many complex processes, so that individuals can explore their world through pictures. It takes a part of the eye to filter light through, part to convert the light energy into electrical energy, and then the brain has to translate that into objects/pictures (Turnbull et Al, 2002). When part of this process is damaged at birth or later in an individual’s life, this will lead to visual impairments (Turnbull et Al, 2002). There are three main classifications for the visual impairments within schools: low vision, functionally blind, and totally blind (Turnbull et Al, 2002). If a student is obtaining no valuable information from their sight, then they are considered to be totally blind, but when the student is using their sight to enhance the information that they primarily obtain through their other primary senses, they are classified as functionally blind (Heward, 2003). If the child, however, uses their sight as their primary source for obtaining information and sometimes uses other senses to enhance this information, then they are considered to have low vision (Heward, 2003). To be legally blind a person must have a field of vision that is limited to seeing only twenty percent of their field of vision, which is clinically measured by a professional (Turnbull et Al, 2002).

When a child has any vision loss, they are often confronted with additional issues that interfere with obtaining an education. When it does interfere with education, the child is considered by the definition provided by IDEA to have a visual impairment (Turnbull et Al). The impairment can hinder the child’s self-concept and environmental interactions and exploration. A teacher can assist the child by providing a wide array of experiences where the child can discover the world around them with their other senses (Turnbull et Al, 2002). Through exploring the world, they can expand their vocabulary, fine motor, and cognition skills. It is also helpful to have the children interact with their sighted peers, so that they can build friendships and experience appropriate social interaction, which can in turn help to build self-concepts. It is also important for educators to incorporate assistive learning technology and to be aware of their communication with the child, as often those with sight communicate through physical cues, which those with vision impairments cannot see.

As there are many obstacles for a child with vision impairments to overcome, they can become active in the social experiences available to them. In Arizona, there is the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Foundation for the Blind, the School for the Deaf and Blind, Arizona Industries for the Blind, Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and many others. These groups offer opportunities for those whom are blind to interact with others that are experiencing the world similarly, through social events, special classrooms/schools, and group therapy.

References

Turnbull, Rud, Ann Turnbull, Marilyn Shank, Sean Smith, & Dorthy Leal (2002). Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools(3^rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.

People use senses to explore the world around them. The senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell allow people to define the objects surrounding them, relate to one another, navigate through places, and learn things in school. Often people rely heavily on sound to exchange information. In the classroom, these senses are used regularly, so when individuals have hearing impairments, it adds extra obstacles toward achieving an adequate education. This paper will help define hearing, as well as, look at the impact of this sense in the classroom and explore resources available in the community to help those with hearing impairments.

Hearing includes collecting and interpreting sound. This involves different components of the ears and brain to gather and translate sound waves or vibrations in the air (Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, Smith, & Leal, 2002). According to Turnbull (2002, p. 518), the three separate components of the ear work like this, “the outer ear is the microphone in the studio, the middle-ear the radio transmitter, and the inner ear the radio receiver.” The main receptor organ for hearing is the cochlea, which is in the inner ear (Heward, 2003). It “consists of two fluid filled cavities and contains 30,000 tiny hair cells arranged in four rows” (Heward, 2005). The different components of this complex organ help to translate high and low tones that are in turn transmitted by the auditory nerve to the brain (Heward, 2003). This multifaceted system helps us to perceive sounds in our environment. When it is not working correctly, it can lead to hearing loss or deafness.

Medically deafness is defined with specific measurements. Decimals measure the intensity of sound (Turnbull et Al, 2002). Hertz measure the pitch of the sound (Heward, 2003). Some individuals with hearing loss can hear only specific hertz or decimals that are more exclusive than the array of hertz and decimals those without impairments can hear (Turnbull et Al, 2003). For example, they may hear a siren but not a waterfall.

Within education, according to IDEA, hearing impairments are defined by a loss that interferes with and negatively impacts a child’s educational performance (Turnbull et Al, 2002). Hearing loss normally creates a communication barrier that impacts the child’s education by distracting from age appropriate lessons and focusing more on getting simple points across (Turnbull et Al, 2002). Often in school, children who are deaf are challenged most by math and reading, but find difficulty in all academic areas (Heward, 2003). It also creates extra barriers in the child’s social interactions and can leave children feeling low self-esteems. Teachers have a special job in helping build the child’s communication skills, social interaction, academic achievements, and self-concept. There are many options for children and families with children who are deaf. There are technology and surgical procedures. There are special classes and schools. There are a variety of communication techniques. Within the school, Children who are deaf can find help in speech therapy, assistive technology, resource rooms, special classrooms, special schools, and other social programs.

The deaf community is a great group for the children to find a place where they fit in and find others that relate to them. Within Arizona, there are specific nights that people within the deaf community meet at a coffee house, go to a closed caption movie theatre, or out to the local bookstore. There are also schools geared toward the deaf, like the School for the Deaf and the Blind.

References

Heward, William L. (2003). Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education (7^th ed.).Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Turnbull, Rud, Ann Turnbull, Marilyn Shank, Sean Smith, & Dorthy Leal (2002).Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today’s Schools(3^rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.