Kaden

Erica and Thane went to the hospital knowing they were about to welcome a baby boy into their lives. What they did not know is that their baby boy, Kaden, was going to be born with Down syndrome. Erica had the triple screen blood test done and two sonograms during her pregnancy – none of which indicated that her first-born was going to have the most common chromosomal condition among live births. One in every 733 babies is born with Down syndrome.

After Kaden’s birth Thane and Erica began to educate themselves on Down syndrome. What they found out gave them hope for the future. “I had no idea the capabilities these children had,” said Erica. “They can go to college, live on their own.” Members of the Down Syndrome Society of Wichita spoke to the family about having a child with Down syndrome, which helped them to cope with the uncertainties of not knowing how to raise a child with Down syndrome and gave them direction in services that their child may need.

Erica and Thane believe in the power of early intervention services. They wanted to be proactive in Kaden’s development and brought him to Heartspring Pediatric Services when he was just seven weeks old. Kaden had evaluations from a speech language therapist, an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. Even though Kaden was a baby, he began therapy services and home based early intervention services immediately. Erica and Thane wanted to take a progressive approach to Kaden’s therapy services, knowing the potential for his development to be behind that of other children his age and wanted to give him a head start.

Kaden receives speech, occupational and physical therapies services at Heartspring. His family brings him in three times each week to work on communicating, playing and movement skills. Erica says Kaden enjoys speech therapy the most. Kaden loves people and works hard for his speech therapist, Audrey Hummel. At 15 months, Kaden is already beginning to put two words together! He loves to imitate people and is also using sign language as a means to communicate. Kaden is working on eating, drinking from a cup and communicating verbally, as well as using sign language.

At home playtime is also work time. Therapists like Teresa Young, Kaden’s occupational therapist, have given Erica and Thane tools and activities to do with Kaden outside of therapy. “This is quality time with him. We can do these things at home with him and he enjoys it. Our play is teaching,” said Erica. “We also let him play by himself. It’s not all work.” They have integrated tracking, playing with toys appropriately, massaging the roof of Kaden’s mouth, rolling, crawling, and cruising into every day play with him. They have worked hard to keep Kaden on track with development for children his age. The only area in which Kaden is behind right now is in walking. Cheryl Jabara, Kaden’s physical therapist, sees this as something Kaden will be doing very soon. “He is standing by himself with no support,” she said.

Erica and Thane’s dreams for Kaden are like any other parents’ dreams – that Kaden will read, write, learn in school, play with others his age and eventually go to college. Their dreams did not change because of his diagnosis. They have been aggressive in their strategy to give Kaden every possible opportunity to develop his skills. They want to prevent the challenges they have heard so many other children and families have gone through.

“The therapists at Heartspring believe in Kaden. They do not baby him. They treat him like any other child,” said Erica. “We want all parents to know what children with Down syndrome can do. We wish all parents could or would get their children into early intervention services.”