What is a Victory?

The Institutes Developmental Profile encompasses the six areas of function that are critical to Man. These functions are divided into seven critical stages of development. Altogether there are forty-two functions that are vital to Man articulated on The Profile. These are the functions which are carefully evaluated and recorded at each visit, and it is the evaluation of these forty-two functions that yields the neurological age of the child and from which the overall growth rate of the child is determined.

Clearly when any of these forty-two functions improves or a child actually gains a new function, this is cause for rejoicing. In effect, any upward change on The Profile is a victory for a brain-injured child. However, not all changes are of equal magnitude. Some improvements are more significant that others.

In 1973, when The IN-REPORT was first conceived, its entire purpose was to record the results of treatment of children on The Institutes Intensive Treatment Program. At that time there was no journal or publication of any kind reporting on the results of treatment of brain-injured children. Not only did we wish to record and publish our own results, but we wished to establish a place where others could do so as well. We then had to decide exactly what results we would record. After much consideration we established a criteria.

The first and most important criterion was to choose those functions on the Profile that were so important and so dramatic as to be life-changing. In short, we looked at The Profile and asked what are the functions that when a child achieves that function his ability to survive in life increases dramatically? What are the functions which when gained will mean that his style of life becomes higher and better?

As an example, if a child had been blind and he could now see he would enjoy a whole new life entirely different from the one he had experienced before, and his actual chance of survival in the future will improve.

This was the first test a function had to pass to become a Victory.

Next we wanted to choose those functions that everyone would understand were important. The staff and The Institutes families understand very well that all neurological functions are important, but which functions were the ones that everyone in the world would immediately see as vital?

A change in the Babinski reflex is important, but most people would not understand the significance of such a change. Everyone understands that if a child was deaf and can now hear, that is important.

This was the second test a function had to pass to become a Victory.

Finally we looked at all the things that brain-injured children were never supposed to be able to do. The medical records of our children before their first visit to The Institutes were full of grim prognostications.

"He will never walk."
"She will never talk."
"He will never understand a word you say."
"She will never see your face."
"He will never read a word."
"She will never write."
"He will never creep."
"She will never be well."
"He will be on anticonvulsants for the rest of his life."

The litany went on and on and on.

It still does.

What a dark crystal ball these sorry people must have.

Of course, we don't have a crystal ball.

We can't see into the future. We do not know how an individual child will do. We can not predict which child will do well and which child will not. We don't know who will graduate and who will fail.

I suppose if we did know we could then accept only those children with whom we knew we would succeed and reject those children with whom we would fail.

Then we would have stunning results, wouldn't we?

We would always win and we would never lose.

But if we were so clever as to know which children would win and which would lose, I hope we would never be so callous as to take only the potential winners and leave other hurt children out in the cold.

In fact, if we could only take one hurt child in the whole world we would take the most hurt child and we would fight and fight and fight until we fixed him, and when we did we would have the answers to all the other children who were not so hurt . . . wouldn't we?

Come to think of it, that is what we are doing right now, but we are privileged to do that with 600 children, not just one.

Since we don't have a crystal ball (and we don't think anyone else has one either) we will just have to stick with results.

Results.

How many blind kids can see, how many deaf kids can hear, how many immobile kids can crawl, creep, walk or run, how many kids can understand, how many kids can talk, how many kids can read, how many kids can write, how many kids are healthy, how many kids are detoxified, how many kids are ready to join their well peers.

How many?

The answers to those questions are the only answers that matter in the world of brain-injured children.

And that is what The IN-REPORT is all about.

by Janet Doman, Editor

Note: More information about The IN-REPORT is available on our website.
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