When should a child with a spinal cord injury return to school?

Immediately, children with spinal cord injuries should return to school and their normal life as soon as possible. As long as they're medically stable, and can tolerate, sometimes our patients will go back to school for half a day for the first couple of days. But, getting back into school and into their peer groups is the best thing for them in normalizing their life. We believe that children should go back to their regular school, and the school is under an obligation to accommodate them. Your health care professionals can help you with that, they can assist you with that. We have a letter that goes back to school with them, explaining the disability. I often talk to the school nurses to help them understand the differences in the needs of the child. But in terms of school, they're still just a student, just like every other student, and they should be treated just like every other student, and go back to their regular school.

We think children who sustain spinal cord injuries should return to school as soon after injury as possible. The rehabilitation team needs to start working with that child's school immediately upon the beginning of rehab, in order to prepare the classroom, the teachers, the school and their peers for the return of the child with the spinal cord injury. Depending on the child's age, the preparation is a little bit different, and so a child who is in kindergarten may just be in a kindergarten class all day, same class. If the child is a high school student, they maybe rotating through the hallways, going to lockers, needing to access different teachers, different groups of people. So, we need to talk to the school, find out what the situation is at that individual's school and ensure that the school understands that the child with the spinal cord injury will be returning. Our kids who return to school quickly seem to do much better because they integrate back into their community quicker than they would if they stayed home and did home schooling.