If you ask people with disabilities about forming relationships, many will tell you that the biggest challenge is that the world just can’t see them as they are.

In fact, one of life’s great journeys is learning to see things with more than our eyes, and learning to appreciate the world more fully with all our senses and our full spirit.

This week, our friends at Speechless and our experts tackle these issue head-on. We hope you’ll enjoy watching Dr. James Rice, who finishes up his three part series on the pre-adult years of people with CP, and the dynamic Mo Buti, who offers additional insights on how we can all better understand and build great relationships that expand our mind and world.

Question to Micah: What has the cast learned from you?

There are many parts of the human experience that we all share. But the specificity of growing up with a disability just isn’t one of them. Which is why it can be a bit disorienting to be a parent trying to raise a child with CP and do your best. The question of “how much do we understand another person?” is profound in any case, but perhaps it’s just a bit more so when your child has physical challenges that you don’t.

So as the DiMeo’s take a road trip this week, we invite you on a parallel trip. We know you’ll appreciate the valuable insights of Dr. Warschausky and Rice as they share their knowledge and experience in the specific physical and challenges of growing up as a child with CP.

Happy New Year to all our friends in the CP community. And to our friends at Speechless. So glad to be back.

Given the many physical challenges associated with Cerebral Palsy, it’s often difficult to stay mindful of a person’s artistic and creative needs. When many individuals are non-verbal, it can also be hard to remember the importance of finding one’s voice. This week’s episode of Speechless brings wonderful insights and innovative answers to this conversation.

As we do every week, we support that conversation with some wonderful videos by our experts. So enjoy Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky’s passionate thoughts on artistic expression and Dr. Ted Conway’s thoughts on a perhaps quite distant future when thought can actually become speech.

All the best for the holidays. We’ll be putting out some special videos over these few weeks. And our experts will be back on January 4^th.

Happy Holidays from all of us at CPF!

Sara Pyszka Uses AAC to Sing National Anthem

Speechless just keeps covering more topics. And that means the series keeps bringing up interesting questions. Like just how does the body with CP work? How can we best understand it? And how can we best support people with CP to achieve their goals – whether that is participating more actively in sports, or just being able to get around with less pain and challenge.

We hope you enjoy this week’s videos, where you’ll learn about the Gross Motor Classification system – the way doctors best define the nature of an individual’s CP – and about Gait Analysis, which is the latest and greatest in evaluating a person’s movement. And don’t forget to check out this great sled hockey story about our friends in the Wheelchair Sports Federation’s New York Sled Rangers.

New York Sled Rangers

Affairs of the heart are tough for us all. They can be especially hard for people with disabilities. The ups and downs of romance and dating can be much so more extreme when your body doesn’t always do what you want it to, when the words that are in your heart take longer to make their way to another’s.

Whether you’re an individual who has disabilities, a family member, or just someone who deeply feels the rhythm and thrum of love and longing, we hope you’ll enjoy and share this week’s videos and their many insights.

There is nothing more beautiful than family. And, now and then, there is nothing more infuriating. That can be especially true when a family includes someone with CP – and a relative who has a hard time understanding it.

Learning to understand what a family feels on the inside is a critical yet often elusive goal for many people. We hope this week’s videos help everyone reach them.