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Beverly Press
June 2000
By Robert L. Gard
Northwest District
Michael Tuero, who will be 3 later this month, has spent more time in a hospital than many people spend in their entire lives.
“He was in the hospital for three months when he was born,” Michael’s mother, Yasmina Tuero, said. Michael, a full-term baby, was born with CHARGE Syndrome, a condition occurring in about 1% of every 15,000 births.
The condition caused Michael to have multiple birth defects, including blindness, hearing loss and heart defects.
Due to his difficulty in swallowing, Michael does not eat regular foods.
He is fitted with a special gastrostomy tube in which liquids are fed to him.
“We don’t give up on him eating.” his mother said, “so we have to work with tastes.”
Small amounts of food are offered to Michael to get him used to swallowing,” she said.
Despite the toddler’s disabilities, he was outfitted in a tiny cap and gown last month for his graduation from the Blind Childrens Center in Los Angeles.
Jill Brody has worked with Michael at the center as an occupational therapy consultant since he was an infant, and said that in spite of his physical problems, Michael is a happy child.
“He is really beginning to put things together to make sense of his world,” Brody said.
Communication is his greatest need because vision and hearing are his greatest impairments, she said.
Brody continues to work with Michael using touch cues to communicate with him.
Michael’s mother said he has to be taught in a way that makes sense him.
“We just can’t say ‘Michael, look at a tree.’ So Michael learns to touch. His hands are really his eyes,” she said.