Trust Tommy

Well, that's one big hurdle over. Have to present this to the teacher heading the YS tomorrow at lunch. Comes in exactly a page


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BACK ROUND

My name is Tommy Collison. My project for the Young Scientist is A Study Of Cerebral Palsy in Education.

I’m 14, and in first year of Castletroy College

WHAT EXACTLY IS CEREBRAL PALSY?



The dictionary defines Cerebral Palsy as “a condition marked by impaired muscle coordination (spastic paralysis) and/or other disabilities, typically caused by damage to the brain before or at birth.”

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a motor disease. Approximately 2-3 in 1000 children are born with it in some form. There are, however, different severities, meaning you could be wheelchair bound, or you could merely walk with a limp, and any stage in between.

“Cerebral” refers to the Cerebrum, which is the area of the brain which is affected. Palsy refers to disorder of movement.

WHAT CAUSES IT?

CP is caused by damage to the motor control centers of the brain (the part which tells you to move) up to t he age of 3. This can happen during pregnancy (75% of the time), during childbirth (5% of the time) and after birth, up until the age of three. (15% of the time)

Luckily, it is a non progressive disorder, meaning that the damage does not worsen. There is no known cure for CP, and medical intervention is limited to the treatment/prevention of complications arising from it.

WHERE MY PROJECT COMES IN

Living with CP is hard. Even for normal people, school is hard. But for people with CP, it can be doubly hard. The transition from Primary to Secondary school, daunting for normal people, can be exceptionally difficult. New school, new classrooms, new pupils and teachers can all make life hard.

A whole new (and often larger) school means new timetable, often more moving around from class to class (often the case in Primary school is that there is only one classroom. In secondary, there is one class for each subject) can create difficulties. With more pupils, the corridors are more crowded, especially between classes and at lunch means there’s more jostling and often this creates a problem.


What I intend to do is survey 8-10 children, who are in the last year or so of primary school and the first few years of secondary school, to find out what problems they face or what worries them. Perhaps they are bullied for being different, perhaps s/he are upset at moving school, possibly being split up from their friends.

Based on my findings and their answers, I would hope to be able to give recommendations to the necessary organizations and they could be able to help me make life easier for the children.