Cerebral Palsy Case Study Room

When the five year old male client with cerebral palsy first entered the room his initial response was to sporadically dart around the room excitedly in no seemingly pointless manner. The clinician let him get some of his energy out before starting in the therapy. The client excitedly explores the room. In about a minute, the client is already trying to play with the lights, get things off a high shelf, and touch everything in the room. Strategically the clinician placed everything out of his reach so the client would have to intentionally ask for help, say please, or use words to communicate. Exploring the room becomes the first therapy activity. The clinician is trying to get as many words out of the client as possible. Most are functional …show more content…
That’s why she puts everything in places where the client will have to communicate to get to what he wants. She puts a lot of activities on the high shelf so the client has to ask to get up there. He also just likes being picked-up in general so that helps the clinician because knowing he wants picked up is how she can get him to talk more. At one point the clinician pulled out a piece of paper during a short break for the client to draw on. Knowing he liked to draw, she asked him about his drawing which helped getting him to talk about “mommy”, “daddy”, and “bubby” and other vocabulary words used in everyday life. She knew him well enough that drawing would get him talking and calm him if he got upset, so it acted as a secret weapon to continue therapy for when he became frustrated or signed ‘done’ so he could take a break. Also, knowing that the client is very tactile-oriented, helped her manipulate him into using his vocabulary to turn the lights on or off and open or close the blinds. Lastly, she also knew he had a tendency to hit and draw on the table and was then able to remind him not to do so if he appeared to be drawing too close to the edge of the paper or started to look upset or bored. All in all, the clinician knew her client well, and since he did his best to obey her (at least in actions) it’s clear that he knows and respects her enough to