FEATURED INDIVIDUAL
MEET ANDREW BLIXT BY ALICE FELL
40 years ago Andrew Blixt was delivered at 26 weeks old by emergency C-section, to save his mother Jill’s life. 40 years ago very few 26-week-old preemies survived. Andrew did. His first weeks of life were spent on an open bed since he was much too fragile for an the confines of an incubator. He was on a ventilator since his tiny underdeveloped lungs were unable to breathe. He was fed via an intranasal tube. Andrew could not be held or physically comforted. His eyes were covered since he was under lights. Jill spent 3.5 weeks in the hospital recovering from near death and was only able to see her baby son, but not touch or comfort him. Al, his dad, had to follow the same restrictions. After months in the NICU at Holden which is part of Mott’s Children’s Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Andrew went home. Since therapists had worked with him on learning to suck he was able to successfully receive
Andrew and Mom May 2017
10
November 2023
Against The Odds
nourishment using formula and a bottle. His homecoming came with a mix of joy and fear since breathing continued to be a concern. He safely slept in a cradle under his parent’s watchful eyes so they could make sure he remained able to breathe on his own. His doctors at the time were not concerned there would be any difficulties developmentally, even though milestones were delayed. Finally, at 2.5 years old, the pediatrician informed Jill and Al, that Andrew had Cerebral Palsy. By 1983 several changes had been implemented in this country in the way children with disabilities were being treated. Back in 1975 federal law PL 94-142 was passed assuring every child in the US an equal and appropriate public education. Before that law, many children with disabilities were housed in institutions with little access to educational opportunities. At the time I was working at Rackham School for children with disabilities, located on the campus of Eastern Michigan University. It was a lab school for the University Program training special education teachers and therapists. We were one of a few isolated schools in Michigan providing academic and therapeutic services to children with severe physical and cognitive impairments. Since the Law mentioned above mandated a timeline for getting schools like Rackham integrated into the public school system, within a few years of its inception, our program soon became part of the Washtenaw Intermediate School District and was housed in Ypsilanti Public Schools. In 1985, when Andrew was 2.5 years old, his parents just happened to hear of our program, and so began this young child’s journey through the public school special education system. Michigan was a state that chose to provide public school opportunities
Andrew and his dad at the Mt. Rainer Train
from birth through 26 years of age despite the federal law’s limits of 3 to 21. This provided Andrew the opportunity to begin services at Estabrook Elementary School, in the Early Intervention portion of the program then known as New Horizons. l was Andrew’s first speech/ language therapist, and at 2.5 Andrew was not yet speaking. I diagnosed him with childhood apraxia of speech. He also did have cerebral palsy and exhibited other symptoms that fell on the autism spectrum. Jill told me she believed Andrew would read before he spoke and we did use written language along with a host of other strategies to encourage verbal communication. Andrew was also encouraged to utilize various methods of augmentative communication. With lots of work on everybody’s part, Andrew was walking and talking by the time he was 6, and also reading. He learned at a slower rate than other kids his age but he did indeed learn. It became obvious
