Laura

Girl, born July 2008

Laura is a sweet girl who is waiting for her forever family.  She was legally separated from her typical brother, who was adopted by another family.  But she has been seen by American doctors and therapists, and they provided several observations about Laura.

From her medical records: Low spastic paraparesis Y81.1 with dysfunction of statics and walking; delay of mental and speech development  F83; convergent squint H 50.1; partial atrophy of optic nerve  H 47.2;  hydrocephalus G 91.

One pediatrician wrote:  Laura is a very attractive child, but has significant delays.  I wonder about her eyesight because she was not searching out objects and she was not making good eye contact. I did hear some good babbling so I am less concerned about her hearing. She has obvious gross motor delays, (can’t walk and I ‘m not even sure if she sits alone which is a 6 month skill) fine motor delays ( no manipulation of toys were shown) and speech delays.( At 2 years 7 months she should be speaking in short sentences.)   I plotted Laura on the growth charts and she is at the 1st percentil for ht and wt and her hc is at the 85th percentile. With that large a head and a small weak body it makes it difficult to make any gross motor progress.

Another pediatrician wrote:  I bet she just has hydrocephalus and CP. I would think it would eventually be fatal if not shunted, but I don’t know b/c I never see HC not treated! I’ll bet if she came here and got surgery, she’d make huge strides. She would never be normal – but I bet big improvement.

An occupational therapist who works with autistic children wrote:   She has some self-stimulatory behavior (shaking head back and forth and moving body back and forth) that could be indicative of 1)autism 2) visual defects 3) severe cognitive deficits. She’s making some noises but it didn’t sound much like a babble to me.

More photos and VIDEO is available.