Moving Ahead One Step at a Time
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Important Strides for Children with Disabilities
By Wendy Taylor Carroll
From Kern County Family Magazine, November 2000
Bryson Meadors beamed as he took his first wobbly steps the other day. There were only four of them, each just a little stronger than the one before. For any child, those first tentative steps are a big milestone. For four and a half-year-old Bryson, they were one small miracle. those steps were hard won, the result of grueling work by his teachers at Sequoia Middle School, his parents and a local organization named MOVE – Mobility Opportunities Via Education. Aptly named, this is a common-sense program with the goal of helping children with severe disabilities take strides toward a life-long gift: independence.
Since the moment they were told that their son was born with a rare form of Downs Syndrome with the further complication of a traumatic brain injury, Amy and Chad Meadors of Bakersfield have learned to wait patiently and to celebrate each milestone in Bryson’s life. They had been told from the beginning that even with exhausting work and fine-tuning, his motor skills would have to find their own timetable, a much later one than for most children.
For Bryson and for others with severe motor disabilities, time is a cruel and unforgiving enemy. The clock seems to do double time as limbs of any age wither and atrophy from disuse. A body is designed for movement and when it doesn’t get it, delicate systems begin to break down. Lack of movement plays havoc with the cardiovascular system, bone health, the shape of the spine, muscle strength, the respiratory system, joints, bowels and more. While taking a tremendous toll on a body, the inability to move wages a devastating battle on the spirit. Without choice, the children have little power over their lives and quickly fall into the trap of a learned helplessness – of lying there waiting for others to provide care. And the power of choice is locked away deep inside their bodies alongside the inability to move.
Linda Bidabe had had it with the hopelessness and helplessness that surrounded her in her job as a Special Education teacher for Kern County Schools. It was 1968 and at a time when children with severe disabilities were fed, toileted and relegated to a soft, cushiony chair. Heartbreakingly, these children were known as “bean bag” kids. Using the Fine Arts Building at the Kern County Fairgrounds as a classroom, the Special Education teachers did their best to make a connection with their young charges. “We were trying everything. We were pretending it was working, but the truth is nothing was working,” says Bidabe. The children weren’t progressing, in fact they were regressing, particularly those that couldn’t move.
Bucking conventional thought and reams of medical literature, Bidabe was convinced that all children could learn, if she could only find a way to teach them. And she was sure that the master key to this learning was in the ability to move. She put her theory to a test with a nine-year-old boy named Tommy and a piece of equipment cobbled together with salvage including the spare tire to her car. Tommy didn’t mind that this looked like a fifth grader’s entry in the school science fair. This makeshift gait trainer – a cross between a walker and a wheelchair – gave Tommy his legs and the ability to chase his classmates down the hall and out the door. It gave him the ability to make a choice of where he would go and when. It gave Tommy the tools to participate in life, not just to watch it from his chair.
Tommy’s life changed with those steps as little Bryson’s will. Linda Bidabe’s life changed with those steps as have the lives of people with disabilities everywhere. Tommy’s run down the hall at the fairgrounds, his squeals of joy and a funny looking walker helped give the initial “legs” to MOVE. In 1986, with seed money and backing from Dr. Kelly Blanton, the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, Bidabe and her colleagues put together a test program much the same way Tommy’s gait trainer had been designed. Bringing together experience, a gut feeling, muscle and a passion for the future of their students, they designed a curriculum that stood conventional thinking on end. Children who had been written off as never being able to stand on their own, walk across a room or sit in a chair began to do all of these thins. The results were astonishing and the word began to spread.
The premise behind MOVE is elegant in its simplicity. It’s a structured way to get individuals moving within their daily lives at school, at home, in a facility or out in the community. A variety of well-thought-out and state-of-the-art equipment is part of MOVE. But the MOVE program is working at optimum when a child is able to be free of any type of supporting equipment.
MOVE is not a miracle. It doesn’t cure a disability. It’s not easy. It takes time, hard work and commitment on the part of the therapists, teachers and parents as well as the individual. But the results can be dramatic. Success in the program sets an individual up for a future of whatever independence and control they are capable.
The simple ability to sit, stand and walk, automatic movements that most of us take for granted, unlocks the doors to many of their life possibilities. As a person takes control of his or her motor skills, they become easier to care for at home or at school. In being able to stand for just 30 seconds, a person can easily be helped out of a wheelchair into a chair or bed. Learning to sit in a regular chair opens up a whole new world of social intercourse and the possibility of being toilet trained. As mobility skills are learned, the community suddenly becomes easily accessible. Being able to walk from the house to a car, sit in the car and then walk into a movie or restaurant opens up family outings and interactions. The goal is to help make disabilities manageable for kids like Tommy and Bryson as well as for their families.
With the philosophy that it “takes a team to move” the program is a study in collaboration. Parents are interviewed about their children’s basic needs and what it will eventually take for them to function as an adult at home and in the community. With this information, an individualized program is set up. Outmoded ideas such as teaching them to fit together puzzle pieces or put a peg in a hole have been thrown out the door. MOVE participants are readied for the real world when they learn the necessary skills to share dinner around a table, stand for a shower, get dressed, go shopping or go to an appointment. These are the accomplishments that have real “legs”.
Bryson’s class at Sequoia Middle School has a different feel from a general education room. No neat desks lined up in a row here. Movement and plenty of it is in each day’s lesson plan. His teacher, Linda Ynastroza, and her aides are constantly challenged to come up with creative ways to get their charges moving. Arts, crafts, sports, games; all of them are adapted to promote activity. In an innovative program where everyone wins, seventh and eighth grade students from the regular classes at Sequoia Middle School spend their daily elective period in the Special Education classroom as helpers. Not only do they provide needed extra eyes and hands, but their hearts soon come right along. While they are indispensable to the smooth workings of Ynastroza’s daily plans, their own lives and attitudes are broadened with the exposure to this group of special children. The day the Bryson Meadors walked unaided was his triumph, as well as his family’s, his teachers, the kids at Sequoia Middle School and the MOVE program.
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Copyright ©2008, Kern County Superintendent of Schools 1300 17th Street - CITY CENTRE, Bakersfield, CA 93301-4533 (661) 636-4000
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