Ellisha has benefitted greatly from the Home Learning Programme set up by her parents shortly after her birth.

The programme was highly intensive and Ellisha made good steady progress. She is very knowing and cognitively aware, desperately trying to communicate her ideas and thoughts, but being held back by her physical difficulties.

Ellisha requires the stimulation of language and role models to imitate, which she is continually getting at Chailey Heritage School and from family and friends. She has physiotherapy, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy on a regular basis. These disciplines are vital in helping her to achieve her potential educationally.  

Ellisha can now operate a range of toys using switches and can predict what
the outcome will be. She will initiate communication with both adults and children and show appropriate responses when spoken to.

Her social language is developing as she gains in confidence. Ellisha is progressing along normal developmental lines - she knows colours, she will picture match and predict what will come next. She engages in role play activities and will initiate the direction of the play through choice making and vocalisations.

Ellisha's long and short term memory are well advanced. She is extremely
aware of her environment and all that is happening around her. Her efforts to tell
her family at the end of the day all that she has done, reflect how much she is taking in, storing and processing.

Ellisha's social and emotional responses are characteristic of other children of her own age. Her sense of humour is well advanced and she shows embarrassment and shyness at appropriate times.

She can 'swipe' at toys, scoop smaller items into a palmar grasp and release them intentionally. Ellisha is very astute and will manipulate routines to suit herself - choosing what she wants to eat, clothes she wants to wear and activities that she wants to do. She knows what is relevant to her family life, whose clothes are whose - and so on.  

She has full understanding of objects around her  - if she enters a room that is new she can show you where things are when asked 'Ellisha I can see a picture of a dog, can you?'  She understands simple reasoning and will cooperate in situations if things are explained to her. The physical effort to interact with able-bodied peers can at times be very tiring and frustrating and Ellisha does benefit greatly by having the support and contact of peers who share the same physical difficulties.

Ellisha's Everyday Efforts - by Chelsea Dorrill, age 10

'My amazing 5 year old sister Ellisha has unfortunately got Cerebral Palsy.

She is a bright child and able to word build e.g. cat, mat and Sam etc. She can also do her numbers 1 - 10 but disappointingly she cannot sit, walk or even crawl.

Ellisha is a very wise little girl, she knows what she wants but cannot do it because by the time her brain give the message  to the part of the body she wants to use, she gets mixed up signals.

Ellisha is the best sister I have ever had. Every day I play with her. When I take her up to my room to play with her, I always ask her what she wants to do and every time she looks over to my wardrobe and laughs, because she knows that most of my toys are in there.'