Therapy group helps girl, 10, with Down syndrome adjust
Everything seemed normal when Heather and Chuck Hunt had their first child, Hadley, just over 10 years ago. Like most new pa rents, t hey had prepared for almost every aspect of their daughter’s arrival, but they didn’t plan for her to have Down syndrome.
“Hadley was only a couple of days old when our pediatrician noticed several traits of Down syndrome, such as shortness in the back of her neck and eyes that turned up a little. We had never even considered this possibility, but then we found ourselves waiting nearly three weeks for blood testing to confirm that Hadley did indeed have Down syndrome.”
It came as a big surprise to the Hunts. There was no family history of Down syndrome, and they were both relatively young, just in their 20s. During their wait for the test results, they say they prayed for strength no matter what diagnosis came back. They also resolved to get Hadley whatever therapies she would need and mainstream her early on as an infant.
“We never prayed that Hadley wouldn’t have Down syndrome,” Heather Hunt explained, “We prayed that God’s plan would happen. And ever since her diagnosis, we’ve had the mindset that Hadley is no different than any other child; she just has to work harder, and we push her to do that.”
Hadley began receiving physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy when she was just 2 months old.
The Hunts say Hadley’s biggest challenge now is speech, and for nearly five years she has received help through Janna Hacker and Associates, a Germantown-based group of specialists who provide speech-language, occupational, physical and social therapy.
Janna Hacker, Hadley’s speech therapist, said, “Children with Down syndrome have strengths and challenges when it comes to their communication skills, such as understanding language, speaking and composing sentences, articulating and reading.
“Many children like Hadley struggle with motor speech difficulties in particular, which makes it harder for them to articulate sounds. Therapy helps to make their speech much clearer, which enables them to communicate more successfully at school, with friends, and eventually in the workplace.”
The National Institutes of Health explains that Down syndrome is a genetic condition in which a person is born with an extra copy of chromosome 21, and those with Down syndrome oftentimes have physical problems as well as intellectual disabilities.
March 21 marks the 11th anniversary of World Down syndrome Day. The National Down syndrome Society estimates that one in every 691 babies in the United States is born with Down syndrome, making Down syndrome the most common genetic condition. Although women of any age can have a child with Down syndrome, the chance of having a child with this condition increases as a woman gets older.
Hacker says it takes a team to help children with Down syndrome progress well in speech and language; that team typically includes speech-language pathologists, physicians, classroom teachers, special educators, and families.
Today, Hadley is in third grade in a typical classroom at Dogwood Elementary School with two younger sisters: Sarah, 6, and Milly Haskins, 4. Before this year, Hadley had a “shadow” in class to assist her. This year, she gets pulled out of class only for a specialized reading and math curriculum.
Like most 10 year-olds, Hadley stays active with extracurricular activities. She enjoys twirling baton, cheer and tumbling, and she even swims with a team over the summer.
“Whether it’ s her speech therapist or schoolteacher, we tell everyone to treat Hadley like other kids. She is very determined, and she continues to surprise everyone who knows her,” Hunt said. “She is more alike than different.”