This presentation from the 2023 AACPDM Community Forum presents and overview and a model creating opportunities for employment for individuals with disabilities.
Dr. Debbie Song, Gillette Children's, gives an overview of common neurosurgical procedures to address global tone in individuals with cerebral palsy.
The GMFCS can be a helpful tool in clinical and research use and has been shown to be stable and accurate over time. It can also help individuals and families better understand cerebral palsy.
We got the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy when Lelia was 18 months. I was really happy, as we didn’t know what was wrong with her before then. She had low tone. She couldn’t roll over. She couldn’t sit up. Of course she didn’t walk. The diagnosis gave it a name, something I could work with, and I became a kind of vigilante mother, determined to get the best care for my daughter.
Let me tell you about multimodal communication. We, as typical communicators, all use many different strategies. We use speech, gestures, facial expressions, technology, and no-tech solutions. As communicators, we all size up the situation based upon our communication partners, the context, the environment and then we choose to use the most effective communication strategy.