China Waiting Child: Darby
Darby is an obedient, curious and active little girl who has good self-care ability. She is curious about the things around her and likes visiting new environments. She has good self-care- she can feed herself using her left hand, can go to the restroom on her own and clears her dishes after eating. She has a good appetite and has three meals each day. Darby knows to go and put on her shoes on her own initiative when it’s time to leave and go somewhere. If she puts on her shoes wrong, she changes them by herself.
Under the guidance of her caretaker, she has learned to help the caretaker fold clothes and when the caretaker is helping bathe the children, she knows to prepare the clothes for the caretaker and does it on her own initiative. She also assists the other children on her own- helping them take their clothes, shoes, and towels with them. Her caretaker often praises her and calls her “little helper.”
She likes to write and draw and does it carefully. She has strong movement ability and is active. Darby goes to class and is cooperative with the teacher in her class, though at times she can be impatient. She is kind to her familiar caretakers and will say hello to them and interact with them on her own initiative.
Her file notes that she enjoys when photos are taken of her and she acts like a young model. Sometimes the caretaker amuses her “Darby, take a photo, please“, she is cooperative with the caretaker and makes poses, grins, or makes faces, which makes her caretaker laugh.
She has good language ability and can have a simple conversation. For example, when she is learning numbers, you ask her what she is doing and she answers “I’m writing“. If you ask her what she is writing, she answers “One“. She has made progress in using single word or expressions. She has a good cognitive understanding and she knows and recognizes most of the common shapes, patterns, and colors and can state them. She has been learning how to write, which has been a little more difficult for her, but continues to show improvement.
She has made progress in imitation and understanding and likes to learn children’s songs. She can sing a lot of children’s songs and continues to makes progress in her cognitive ability. If her teacher is telling a story during class, she listens to the story carefully and can imitate the teacher. She knows where her five sense organs are and she also knows several kinds of fruits and vegetables. She can express her own needs and attitude using words. Certain words that she speaks are not as clear, due to hemiplegia, but if you can’t understand what she says, she will point to the object, until you know what she means.
Darby was diagnosed with hemiplegia/cerebral palsy and motor delays.
She is in rehabilitation and continues to make improvements and is becoming braver and more active. Her file is from one of our previous orphanage partnerships and we have had teams visit this orphanage and can connect a family who reviews her file with individuals who have visited there. Her file has a large amount of information contained in it with a lot of helpful and detailed information on development.
Darby’s file is registered as special focus and a family interested in learning more can contact our China team at China@awaa.org.