MIDLAND, TX (KWES) - If you or someone you know has a child with special needs, we have something you want to know about. One center is making it possible for kids in the Permian Basin to get a wide-range of treatments right here in Midland.
On Tuesday, the Midland Children's Rehab Center (MCRC) opened their expanded space and is able to help even more children. Best of all, after over 60 years, they're still doing it at no cost to you.
Things like dropping a coin in a piggy bank, learning words like "more" and walking haven't always come to easy for Noah. That's until his mom, Anna Klein, brought him to MCRC.
"We started coming here when he was about 4 months old," said Klein. "He was originally diagnosed with hydrocephalus and down syndrome and just had a lot going on in early days."
Hydrocephalus is a build-up of water in the brain, this makes it hard for Noah to have hand-eye coordination. Now, about three years into therapy it's just one thing Noah is improving at MCRC.
"His overall development has been helped by coming here," said Klein. "A lot of the things, I didn't know what to work with, when you have a child with special needs you think, 'what do I do now?' and by coming here they showed us how to work on crawling, sitting, standing, walking, all of the things you take for granted as a parent that your children naturally just get, we had to help him learn to do those things."
With an extra 1,200 sq. feet of therapy space, MCRC is able to help more children like Noah and parents.
"I'm so impressed with the work that they do here," said Klein. "For the moms, while our children are in therapy, we're in there talking and sharing experiences about all the other kids and all the other disabilities I didn't even know existed. You feel so alone. You don't know anyone, you're struggling, nobody really understands that but to be able to come to a place and someone who is trained to work with a child like yours, takes them back and they're working, you know they're doing good work, you can just breathe."
MCRC estimates they'll help 500 children and young adults ages 0-22 in 2018 with dyslexia tutoring, occupational, speech and physical therapy. MCRC is completely run by donations. The center doesn't bill families or insurance. For information on how you can get involved, visit them here.
