http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/06\/20\/education\/20donovan.html?scp=1&sq=Dononvan%20Forde&st=cse<\/a><\/p>\r\nDonovan has spent 15 years in the New York City public school system. He is blind,\u00a0wheelchair-bound and has cognitive problems, all the result of a traumatic brain injury he sustained when he was nearly six months old.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Donovan is\u00a0one of\u00a0132,000\u00a0students in the U.S. classified as having “multiple disabilities,”\u00a0\u00a0at least two disabilities and special educational needs,\u00a0according to The Times. They are\u00a0part of a group of\u00a06.5 million that now get\u00a0some kind of special education\u00a0at a\u00a0cost of $74 billion annually.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0“Students with multiple disabilities, like Donovan and his schoolmates, can have a wide range of diagnoses, including cerebral palsy, rare genetic disorders and problems that stem from conditions in utero or at birth, some of which have no name,”\u00a0 The Times wrote.<\/p>\r\n
It is heart-breaking to hear about Donovan’s cognitive difficulties,\u00a0how teachers shine a flashlight in front of his eyes to get his attention, how he can’t talk,\u00a0how he can only see shapes and sometimes doesn’t even respond to being called by his name. His teachers, quite frankly, don’t know if they are ever getting through to him.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
“Donovan\u2019s mother, Michelle Forde, likes his special education high school, Public School 79, the Horan School, in East Harlem, where she feels he is welcome and cared for,” The Times wrote. “But she wishes his teachers would spend more time working on his practical challenges, like his self-abusive habit of hitting himself in the face so hard that he has to wear thick white cotton mitts most of the time, even when he sleeps.”<\/p>\r\n
Donovan was born with club feet, but was otherwise healthy. But in 1990,\u00a0Donovan, nearly 6 months old, was being held by a family friend out on\u00a0street in Brooklyn when a underaged drive in a stolen car hit them both.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Donovan fell and hit his head on the pavement, and his heart stopped. A bystander administered CPR and revived him, but he\u00a0was in a coma for\u00a0 six weeks, long enough\u00a0so that the\u00a0swelling of his brain\u00a0damaged his optic nerves, leaving him basically sightless.<\/p>\r\n
Donovan’s\u00a0mother never recovered a settlement for his life-changing accident, either. He\u00a0 is living in a\u00a0nursing facility, sharing a room with three other severely\u00a0disabled youths, where he can get the constant care he needs.<\/p>\r\n
One thing is clear about Donovan\u00a0to his teachers: He loves music, and makes a pretty good effort to sing.<\/p>\r\n
According to The Times,\u00a0the trend in\u00a0educating severely disabled children is to use\u00a0emotion and human connection to reach them.<\/p>\r\n
“As higher functioning areas of their brains are underdeveloped, emotion moves them at a deeper level, lighting up the same part of their brain, the limbic system, as meaningful music, and possibly creating a bridge to greater intellectual cognition,” The Times wrote.<\/p>\r\n
But read the full story, which starts on Page One and jumps to a two-page spread.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We no longer shut our severely disabled children, including those with traumatic brain injury,\u00a0away in institutions 24\/7, that’s true. But\u00a0public school systems, mandated to teach the disabled by 1975 federal law, today struggle to find the best way to care for these students.\u00a0 The\u00a0New York Times on Sunday did a masterful job of describing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,640,641,27],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brain-injury-attorney","tag-cerebral-palsy","tag-disabled-children-and-education","tag-traumatic-brain-injury"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Challenges Of Teaching Severely Brain-Damaged Kids, As Told Through Donovan's Story - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/the-challenges-of-teaching-the-severely-disabled-as-told-through-donovans-story.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Challenges Of Teaching Severely Brain-Damaged Kids, As Told Through Donovan's Story - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We no longer shut our severely disabled children, including those with traumatic brain injury,\u00a0away in institutions 24\/7, that’s true. 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