Finding out about cerebral palsy in infants is always something that causes a great deal of distress in parents. If this happens to your child, there will be a process that you can expect and some challenges that you can expect to face in the future. Disturbing as finding out about it is, cerebral palsy affects as many as 2 million people in the United States. Learning more about the disorder can help you to understand it to a greater depth, and that starts by knowing what to anticipate.
Investigations
Modern medicine is a scientific pursuit and, as such, the reasons that a particular event happened are very important to doctors. When a child is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, there will be an investigation into why they suffered the brain injury that causes cerebral palsy. This will involve lab work, scans, investigations into the circumstances of the birth, and more. If medical negligence turns out to be the cause of your child’s cerebral palsy, contact a Texas birth injury lawyer.
Delayed Development
Children with cerebral palsy will be delayed in terms of development. This will be most pronounced in areas where motor skills are in question. If your child has cerebral palsy, expect them to have a different developmental cycle than most children. Speak with the pediatrician to learn more about this and, because your child does suffer from this condition, you generally need to be in close contact with children’s medical experts at most stages of your child’s life.
Learning Disabilities
Not everybody with cerebral palsy is what could be accurately termed intellectually disabled. In fact, some people with cerebral palsy are quite a bit smarter than average. This is because the brain injury that causes cerebral palsy doesn’t affect everybody in the same way. Some people’s cognitive centers may be spared, which means that they develop normally from an intellectual perspective. Even though this is the case, however, some people with cerebral palsy do have difficulty in certain subjects because of their condition. Make sure that you let your child know, when they head off to school, that there’s nothing wrong with having difficulty in some subjects and that they can get extra help when they need it.
Cerebral palsy is distressing, expensive to treat, and can be devastating when parents first find out about it. Be aware, however, that many people with cerebral palsy lead very interesting and fulfilling lives, even if they are severely disabled.