Leia

Beautiful Leia! This sweet little lady has grown and developed well over the years. Leia is a friendly girl, eagerly greeting those she knows. She does have some wariness among strangers, though. She has good self-care skills, including feeding herself and washing her hands. She helps with simple chores, and also speaks in sentences. Her favorite thing to do is draw. Staff reports that she has a great capacity to learn. At her facility, Leia receives therapy for language and motor skills twice daily.

UPDATE: April 2016 Leia is a pretty girl who was very eager to come play when our staff visited in April 2016; she hovered nearby while they talked with other children trying to patiently wait her turn! She is diagnosed with Down syndrome, and they learned from staff that she had surgery for a heart murmur in 2014. They observed nystagmus but the caregivers report it doesn’t seem to affect her vision in daily life. She also has some facial paralysis on her left side, but this was already the case when she came to the orphanage so they don’t know the cause. She was very focused when playing with the toys, and quickly figured out the stacking cups. She did fairly well on the shape sorter, though sometimes she had to try a few times to find the right match. She needed to be looking directly at the lid with the shape holes (straight on) in order to use it. She receives lessons at the orphanage, and is able to point to some colors when asked, but can’t yet count. She tries to put words together in sentences, though her speech isn’t clear. She gets along well with other kids, and loves to hold the babies!