This study tested the safety and effectiveness of a neuroscience-based, multi-component intervention designed to improve motor skills and sensory processing of the more-affected arm and hand in infants with CP where one side is more impacted than the other (asymmetric CP).
This webinar is with Ketrina Hazell, Ms. Wheelchair 2018, a young woman with cerebral palsy and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program. This webinar is about Ketrina's lived experience in the school system and community and what worked or didn't work as she was growing up.
This webinar with Rachel Byrne, Ashley Harris Whaley and Debbie Fink, focusses on the shifting attitudes towards disabled individuals and authentic representation in media, social media and more.
This webinar with Rachel Byrne, Executive Director of CPF, Ashley Harris Whaley, Director of Communities and Engagement at CPF and individual with with CP, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program, focusses on concepts and definitions addressing disability and how language has evolved.
This webinar, with Ashley Harris Whaley, Director of Communities and Engagement, Rachel Byrne, Executive Director of CPF, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program, focusses on the terms "ableism" and "allyship" and ways to facilitate making connections in the schools and communities.
This webinar with Rachel Byrne, Executive Director of Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Ashley Harris Whaley, Director of Communities and Engagement, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program.This video series is a partnership with the New York City Department of Education and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation "Just Say Hi" Disability Education Curriculum. This series is meant to educate and empower parents of students with diverse needs.
This webinar with Jennifer Lyman, Content Manager for CP Resource and parent of a teen son with with CP, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program. This webinar aims to help parents adapt and support academic success and participation at school and in the community.
This webinar with Ashley Harris Whaley, Director of Communities and Engagement, Rachel Byrne, Executive Director of CPF, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program. It It aims to provide an overview of disability history and laws.
This webinar with Jacqueline Wentworth, Pediatric Occupational Therapist and individual with with CP, and Debbie Fink, Vice President of Education and Inclusion at the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, overseeing its flagship “Just Say Hi” program. This webinar aims to help parents adapt and support academic success at home.
Many people do not know the difference between SSI and SSDI. It can be very confusing for a family or individual to understand what is available, and whether they will qualify. Very often, the recipients and their families do not even know which benefits they are receiving. But it is important to understand some basic information about government benefits. This post will focus on the two most common government benefits and give you a brief overview of how they work.
Setting up a Third Party-Special Needs trust as part of estate planning is essential if the individual with a disability is or may be eligible for means-tested government benefits. A properly set up Third Party Trust ensures that the funds left to the individual, whether through gift or inheritance, are not considered countable assets when applying for means tested benefits
In 2014 the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act was passed. The ABLE account is a tax-advantaged savings account for individuals with disabilities. The individual with the disability is the account owner and anyone can contribute to the account – the account beneficiary, family, friends, even a Special Needs Trust.
A special needs trust is a written legal agreement that enables an individual with a disability to qualify or remain qualified for means tested government benefits, such as medicaid, SSI or even medicaid waivers.
As a parent, when it comes to different types of interventions for infants with cerebral palsy, how do you know what you have, what you don't, and what you could get?
Exploration for an infant means discovering anything about that environment. If that infant needs an opportunity to be brought to them, that's okay. Let an infant explore through their senses, whether it's touch, or smell, or taste, or sight, or hearing.
Cerebral Palsy affects body movement, muscle control, muscle coordination, muscle tone, reflex, posture and balance. Depending on the part of the brain that is injured depends on how someone’s muscle tone will be effected. For people with spastic CP they have increased muscle tone because of the part of the brain that's injured. If causes very tight muscles which in turn effects the movement of the joints and of the limbs. For others who have dyskinetic CP they lose the ability to have voluntary control over their muscles, and they can have jerky and uncontrolled movement patterns.
The spine is made up of many individual bones called vertebrae joined together by muscles and ligaments. Flat, soft discs separate and cushion the vertebrae from rubbing against each other. Because the vertebrae are separate, the spine is flexible and can bend. Together the vertebrae, discs, muscles, and ligaments make up the vertebral column or spine.
As a physician and researcher, I skeptically looked forward to learning more about mindfulness practice, because there is evidence it helps with stress management, self-regulation, focus, productivity and happiness. As a mom, I felt that weird mix of guilt that I was going to focus on “not-my-children” for a whole day, excited anticipation and anxiety that maybe I would be a complete failure at this. It turns out all the mental baggage I took into the workshop was the exact opposite of what mindfulness tries to achieve. The daily practice has since changed my life.
PTSD can be common in parents after a child with Cerebral Palsy has left the NICU. One of the hardest days of my life as a NICU parent was not what I would have expected it to be. It was the day I went home without my baby, after spending every waking moment since my emergency C-section by his incubator. I never knew I had a dream about what it would be like to have a baby until that dream was taken away.
