Cerebral Palsy: A Case Study at The Van Buren ISD

Abstract

During the summer of 2005, from June-August, I worked with Frank Lima, a physical therapist, at the Bert Goen’s Learning Center. The school is designed to serve “children with severe cognitive and physical impairments. The combined efforts of teachers, teacher’s aids, speech therapists, nurses, OT’s, and PT’s presents children with severe disabilities the opportunity to reach their full potential physically and cognitively. The children Frank and I worked with suffered from many different disorders including spina bifida, Hurler’s Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, and the most prevalent, cerebral palsy. The disabilities also ranged in severity; some children could walk and talk while others had very limited cognitive abilities and very little motor function. However, in the cases of cerebral palsy, the differences in clinical manifestations and severity was astonishing. These differences motivated me to investigate in-depth not only the different clinical presentations of cerebral palsy but also demographics, diagnosis, assessment, and treatment and management options associated with it. I then used this information in a comparative case study of two students I worked with over the summer.