Accepting Differences
What Children Should Know About Cerebral Palsy
Children are sometimes nervous or a little bit afraid when they see someone with cerebral palsy. Often they are curious about the person's wheelchair or the unusual way the person walks�or they may be uncomfortable about the person's jerky movements or her/his way of talking.
As Mark told us, cerebral palsy is something that you are born with and it means that often the person cannot walk or talk normally. Some people with cerebral palsy walk well and with no difficulty. Others use braces or crutches, while others need a wheelchair all the time. Sometimes the person's speech and mouth muscles are affected so that the words sound garbled and the person drools when she/he speaks.
When a person with cerebral palsy was born, the brain and the nervous system were damaged. This may have happened while the baby was being born or as it was growing inside it's mother. Nobody is sure why a baby is born with cerebral palsy and most of the time it's no one's fault. It's something that just happens.
Cerebral palsy means that the messages from the brain to the legs or to the mouth are not complete. It's sort of like a short circuit. A message from the brain that says "legs move!" never reaches the legs. A message from the brain that says "talk loud and clear!" never gets through. Although it's hard for many people with CP to talk, their slow and labored speech doesn't mean they are retarded. Like Mark, most people with cerebral palsy can do many things and most of them learn as quickly and as much as anyone else. In Rhode Island a little girl, Kathy, has CP. She is severly involved, which means that she must be strapped into her wheelchair. But she gets A's in spelling and science and she's in Brownies too!
When a person with cerebral palsy moves in an unusual way, it is because she/he can't control where an arm or leg will go next. These spastic motions make it hard to hold a pencil or a spoon, or to be neat when eating or playing. "Spastic" is a kind of cerebral palsy, but sometimes kids call each other "spastic" when they're playing games or working together. If a person with CP were to hear that, probably her or his feelings would be hurt, especially since "spastic" means a type of CP.
What Children Should Know About Blindness
Many people have trouble seeing correctly. Most of them, possibly your father or mother, grandmother, brother, or maybe even you, can have their vision corrected by wearing prescription glasses. However, sometimes a person cannot see well at all and wearing glasses just won't help. These people are either legally or totally blind.
When you or a friend of yours got glasses, your vision was corrected to 20/20. 20/20 means that your eyesight is average, that is, you can see an object from a distance of twenty feet, the way an average eye is supposed to see it. If a person has 20/200 vision, she/he sees something at only 20 feet away the way an average eye can see it from 200 feet away. So you can see how a person could be legally blind, while still having some usable eyesight.
A person who is legally blind may use large print books. Your school library might have some large print books that you can look at, or your public library in town may have some. These books are printed so that a person with a little usable vision will be able to read.
Some people, like "Renaldo", are almost totally blind. Renaldo became blind when he received too much oxygen at birth. Some children are blind because their mothers caught German measles while they were pregnant. Today there are shots against the German measles and doctors are more careful about the amount of oxygen given to premature babies, but some children are still born blind or become blind as a result of an accident or illness. Like Renaldo, many can see some shadows and colors but they cannot see enough to read, to drive, or to get around without help.
Most blind people are not "scared" to be blind. Usually they have had training in walking and reading Braille (a system of dots like a secret code), and many people are amazed at all the things that blind people can do. Many blind people work at interesting jobs, swim, ski, play pool, ride tandem bikes, cook, marry, and have families.
What Children Should Know About Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition that some people, both children and adults, can have. It can make things very difficult for he person and his or her family. There are different ideas about what causes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Some people believe that there is a difference in the way the brain works. See, in each person's brain, there is a whole message transmitting system. Messages are received by the brain, and then are moved by little messengers called neurotransmitters. The brain then reads the messages and tells the body how to react. Some studies show that in people with ADHD, there is a difference in the way the message transmitting part of the brain works. But ADHD doesn't affect a person's intelligence. A person with ADHD can be very smart but have trouble focusing that intelligence.
There are different parts of ADHD and people can have several or all of the symptoms. People may have trouble paying attention to things, and tuning out little noises and distracts in order to concentrate on important things, like a lesson at school. A kid with ADHD may not do as well in school as he would like to because he's missed important parts of the lesson.
Another part of ADHD is impulsivity. A kid may have trouble "thinking before doing." This can cause problems in many different ways. It may present danger, such as a girl running into the street without looking. It can cause problems socially, like hitting a friend or taking her toy. The child may blurt out comments that he is later embarrassed about saying, like insulting a friend's new hair style. It can be very frustrating for the child, friends, teachers and family.
