Name
Breakout Session 5B: Teen Years with Usher Syndrome; Living It My Own Way
Date & Time
Wednesday, July 26, 2023, 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM
Location Name
Room 203
Country of Submission
Canada
Description

Through sharing & personal and clinical experience, allow clinicians and people living with Usher syndrome to see teenage years and its challenges through a different lens. Demonstrating how personal resources and a positive attitude in an 'out of the ordinary’ girl, combined with support from family, school and rehab team can result in different positive outcomes. Sharing personal experiences of Laurie`s journey and support provided by the rehab team, implication of family and school to accompany her through each step of her developmental and personal challenges. Laurie faces different sensory and developmental conditions including Usher syndrome, hearing loss/cochlear implants, visual loss and a language impairment. Laurie`s rehab journey, which started at an early age (about 2 years old) and ongoing, will be presented featuring different life experiences, school cursus and rehab in which she participated in. Laurie`s implication will be illustrated using examples of her personal investment and her open-minded attitude in rehab as well as in school. Her participation and efforts in rehab involving many areas of her life led her to participate in activities, develop her full potential and have faith in her own capacities and future. She is actually learning adapted in order to continue the use of technology, have access to information and maintain communications as her visual impairment will eventually deteriorate. Allowing teens and parents, as well as their rehab team, to acknowledge different experiences lived-in real-life situations and how rehab interventions can help in coping with difficulties that occur along the way.