Neonatal intensive care unit

This article describes the four principles that should be integrated into early intervention (EI) speech-language pathology services for infants and toddlers with communication disorders. The article stresses the importance of including the legal guardians of the child in all decisions regardless of their involvement in intervention. The four principles are founded on the ideas that EI services should be: (a) family oriented around culture and language, (b) developmentally appropriate and take…

On August 17, 2014, I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a spinal deformity most common in female adolescents. Before meeting with my orthopedist who officially diagnosed me, I had noticed my torso doing abnormal things. My shoulders weren’t squared, my waist was uneven, my left rib stuck out and my hips were asymmetrical. When the doctor told me I may be an advocate for scoliosis and suggested getting x-rays, I wasn’t surprised. I had been talking about potentially having a spinal…

at the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile, Alabama. The only child to both my mother and father their "miracle baby" is what they call me. Born three months ahead of time about 26 weeks. I stayed in an incubator in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the hospital for two months moving along to the premature nursery for one month. Finally, able to go home, my parents were happy, but this was all something new for them to…

In the United States alone, one in eight live births occur prematurely, or before the baby reaches a gestational age of 40 weeks. The average hospital stay for these premature infants lasts an average of 35.6 days with the typical cost of their care exceeding $100,000 dollars (Center for Healthcare Researcch and Transformation, 2010). While advances in medicine have increased the survivability of these infants dramatically, they still face many challenges. One challenge in particular is that…