Future Kindergarten Student Benefits from Early Intervention Services
by Brittny Ray-Crowell / photos by Erin Treadway
For nearly 50 years, Opportunities Inc. has provided developmental, intervention, and support services to help enhance the lives of adults and children in the Texarkana community.
Watching five-year-old Jelithze Longoria run, climb and play is a living testament of the staff’s dedication towards individual growth and success.
Jelithze’s mother, Yerania Aguilar, was already receiving services at Opportunities, Incorporated, for 9-year old son, Irvin, who was born with Down Syndrome, when Irvin’s evaluating therapist mentioned some concerns about her daughter’s development. At nine months old, Jelithze was still not able to sit upright. After an appointment with a local doctor, Jelithze was referred to a neurologist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Although her brain scans came back inconclusive, she was eventually diagnosed with cerebral palsy based on her motor characteristics and other identifying symptoms.
When Jelithze first began receiving early intervention services from Opportunities Inc., she had severe separation anxiety with her mother, as well as some communication, motor, cognitive, and adaptive delays. Yet at nearly three years old, she began the early childhood intervention program with other students in a classroom, where she has thrived ever since. Occupational therapist Julie McKinney describes Jelithzea as a classroom leader, a kind of “mother hen” who guides and protects her peers.
Once students in the program turn five, they are transferred to a full inclusion kindergarten classroom within a public school setting. The ultimate goal is for these same students to transition into a typical class without the support of special services, and to seamlessly integrate into kindergarten without any indication that they were ever in need of specialized support.
Like any concerned parent, when Jelithze was first diagnosed, Yerania would ask what obstacles her daughter could face in the future, questions which the medical professionals assigned to Jelithze’s case were not always able to definitively answer. Yet at every one of her six month appointments, Jelithze’s doctors were astonished with her rate of growth and progress. Baffled by her rapid progress, Jelithze’s neurologist said, “I don’t know what’s happening, but she’s a miracle.”
Education, regardless of a child’s range of abilities, requires a “village” approach, an idea the staff at Opportunities, Inc., greatly encourages. When asked what Opportunities, Inc., personally means to her family, Yerania cites her appreciation for the staff’s ability to work with her and her husband, Edgar, as a team. During every six-month meeting, a team composed of Jelithze’s service coordinator, teacher, therapists, and family members come together to strategize the progress they hope to see Jelithze achieve in the classroom, as well as how these same goals can be reinforced while she is at home. Jelithze is currently learning to identify the letters of her first name. She can even write them after having the letters demonstrated to her visually.
Later on this summer, Jelithze will graduate in a ceremony held at Opportunities, Inc., where she will afterwards be given a new backpack full of school supplies to prepare her for the exciting journey ahead in kindergarten. No one will be able to tell the braces on her legs were removed only a mere seven months ago, or perhaps that she was ever in need of any support at all. Yet, they will notice her flaunting her adorably girly pink outfits, or the way her eyes glimmer when she breaks into a contagious grin. The staff at her new school, Kilpatrick Elementary, has already fallen in love with her charismatic personality and can’t wait to see her in the fall. Though her departure from the early education program will be a bittersweet occasion, Jelithze and the Opportunities, Inc., staff have forged an indelible bond which they will continue to nurture for years to come.
