Class act: Sacramento COE helps students MOVE toward a richer life
For many parents of children with severe movement disorders, a doctor’s pronouncement that “she’ll never walk” stifles hope. The prospect of a lifetime of carrying, feeding, bathing and toileting their child is often overwhelming and disheartening to these parents, who would give anything to see their child make friends and grow to happy adulthood.
So any program that can help children with orthopedic disabilities increase their mobility and participate more fully in family life and school activities is a godsend to their parents, not to speak of the students themselves.
In the 1980s, Kern County special education teacher Linda Bidabe noticed the longing in a student’s eyes as he sat in his wheelchair watching his classmates play. The boy’s immediate, enthusiastic physical response when Bidabe asked if he’d like to go play with them convinced her that she had to find a way to help him join the action. So she duct-taped together some old walkers, adding padding and support—even an old tire for a counterweight—and 9-year-old Tommy, for the first time, ran down the hall squealing with delight.
The “mobility curriculum” Bidabe developed has now been adopted by schools in 25 countries and is translated into 13 languages. Movement Opportunities Via Education, or MOVE, makes learning to sit, stand, walk and perform other motor skills part of a student’s typical daily activities instead of leaving skill-building to a pull-out physical therapy program once a week. The approach gives students the opportunity to practice new skills thousands of times a year, promoting exponential improvement over traditional therapy programs.
The Sacramento County Office of Education has five classrooms that have been designated by MOVE International as MOVE demonstration sites. These five classrooms are located at Prairie and Markofer Elementary Schools in the Elk Grove Unified School District and Dry Creek Elementary School and Northview Head Start in the Twin Rivers Unified School District. The success they’ve seen since introducing the program in 2007 won SCOE a Golden Bell award from CSBA in 2011.
SCOE special education principal Sharon Holstege and occupational therapist Sheila Wolfe are passionate proponents of the MOVE curriculum, convinced that most students can make improvements in their mobility and socialization.
“We never say ‘never.’ If a student is not able to do something,” Holstege says, “we say, ‘not yet.’ ”
Wolfe is still overjoyed to recount the staff’s reaction when a teenage girl—who had always been overlooked in her wheelchair—stood up in her assistive walker and marched into the office to ask for the daily report using a recorded communication device.
As the office personnel exclaimed “Nida’s talking!” the girl fairly beamed with excitement, Wolfe recalls, noting that she realized then that she needed to help the student prepare many, many more phrases to open up her new world of communication.
“To me, it’s one of the things that gives families hope,” Holstege agrees. “The medical community is not always the most hopeful in terms of talking with our families. They paint a picture of gloom and doom sometimes: they’ll never be able to do this, they’ll never do that. If you have that vision, you don’t have much expectation for your students.”
But MOVE’s proactive, motivational curriculum has produced remarkable success over time with students who might otherwise have never been given the opportunity to show that they can make progress.
One young boy came to the program in preschool, almost immobile in his wheelchair. His nerves were easily irritated by clothing, and he let teachers know he wasn’t happy about being pressed to move about in a modified walker known as a gait trainer. But with modest, realistic goals—sometimes measured in tiny increments, literally step by step—he began to walk upright; eventually he walked freely, without aid.
“The therapist said he’s not going to walk, we’ll just monitor his equipment needs,” Holstege recalls. “But when they saw a video of his progress, doctors did medical interventions to straighten his legs. They would never have done that if he hadn’t demonstrated what he can do.”
Parents use terms like “miracle” when describing what MOVE has done for their children.
“There are people here who really care, and people who really believe that your child can succeed,” one mother told a local television channel that profiled the program. “I’ve seen children go from not being able to sit up by themselves to standing up, to crawling, to walking, to actually running.”
Helping children become more active helps reduce respiratory illness and infections, improves cardiovascular fitness, and improves bone health. In fact, weight-bearing exercise has helped children avoid surgery for hip dislocation that can be caused by inactivity.
Instilling these children with the capacity to move and reposition themselves also helps their parents and caregivers, who may be struggling with lifting and moving a growing child.
Along with mobility, the program also promotes cognitive skills, communication and independence. Those unable to speak are taught to use communication devices to signal their desires and needs and perform tasks.
The MOVE program suggests modifications and supports families as they make simple changes, such as helping one girl sit in a stool at the kitchen counter instead of away from the action in her wheelchair. Learning to feed herself and interact with the family was very empowering, Holstege says.
And then there is the high school student who, upon learning to use a walker-like device, was able to walk the family’s dog with his grandfather for very first time.
“That’s what it’s all about,” Holstege says.
—Kristi Garrett
WHO: Students with orthopedic disabilities
WHAT: The Mobility Opportunities Via Education program; Sacramento County Office of Education
WHEN: Since 2007; program originated by Linda Bidabe in Kern County in 1986
WHERE: Five model sites in Sacramento County
WHY: To help people with disabilities acquire motor skills to enhance their access to a full life
MORE: www.move-international.org