Post by Logan on May 9, 2016 4:22:29 GMT -6
Lauretta Jackson spent an hour on a recent Friday morning in the home of Bushra, an Iraqi refugee, trying to help Bushra teach her seven-month-old daughter, Sara, how to gain control of her muscles and live a normal child’s life.
Jackson monitored while Bushra grabbed a miniature plastic train engine and placed it about a foot away from Sara, who was lying on her stomach. The secondhand toy, a language-learning tool for infants, lit up, and a recorded voice offered a congratulatory phrase in Spanish. Bushra helped her daughter roll toward the toy and watched as Sara extended her arms to grab it. Again the train engine lit up and offered a second phrase in Spanish. Sara smiled.
As a newborn, Sara had trouble swallowing food and keeping it in her stomach, Jackson said. She struggled to gain weight, and a doctor recently diagnosed her with failure to thrive. He referred Bushra to Any Baby Can, a nonprofit provider in the state’s Early Childhood Intervention program, which serves children with disabilities and developmental delays until they are three years old.
After a little more than a month of weekly therapy sessions, the muscles in Sara’s neck and torso are rapidly strengthening, Jackson said, but she still cannot roll over on her own. Bushra has been practicing this exercise and others with her daughter every chance she gets: when they are alone together in the living room, with Sara’s siblings when they return from school, or while the family waits for the bus. This she told Jackson through a translator, Sonia Elo, who looked on from the couch.
Read more: www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/advocates-warn-cuts-early-childhood-intervention-p/
Jackson monitored while Bushra grabbed a miniature plastic train engine and placed it about a foot away from Sara, who was lying on her stomach. The secondhand toy, a language-learning tool for infants, lit up, and a recorded voice offered a congratulatory phrase in Spanish. Bushra helped her daughter roll toward the toy and watched as Sara extended her arms to grab it. Again the train engine lit up and offered a second phrase in Spanish. Sara smiled.
As a newborn, Sara had trouble swallowing food and keeping it in her stomach, Jackson said. She struggled to gain weight, and a doctor recently diagnosed her with failure to thrive. He referred Bushra to Any Baby Can, a nonprofit provider in the state’s Early Childhood Intervention program, which serves children with disabilities and developmental delays until they are three years old.
After a little more than a month of weekly therapy sessions, the muscles in Sara’s neck and torso are rapidly strengthening, Jackson said, but she still cannot roll over on her own. Bushra has been practicing this exercise and others with her daughter every chance she gets: when they are alone together in the living room, with Sara’s siblings when they return from school, or while the family waits for the bus. This she told Jackson through a translator, Sonia Elo, who looked on from the couch.
Read more: www.texastribune.org/2016/05/03/advocates-warn-cuts-early-childhood-intervention-p/