Sunday, March 6, 2011 (Updated 4:05 am)
By Ann Fish
MADISON — Leslie Mauney’s cerebral palsy was diagnosed shortly after her birth in December 1968. Now 42, she didn’t walk until she was 3 years old and then only with braces, which she says she hated. But Mauney didn’t let her disability slow her down.She teaches severely profound students at Rockingham Middle School.
When Leslie was 3, her mother enrolled her in half-day sessions in the Cerebral Palsy Day Care Center in Charlotte, where she underwent therapy sessions. Fran also took her to speech and physical therapists. When it came time to enroll Leslie in school, Fran called Indian Land Elementary School principal Paul Cook and told him the situation. Cook’s immediate response was, “We will be glad to have your child here, and we will do everything we possibly can to get her the services she needs.”
Cook arranged for special therapists to work with Leslie. Her resource teacher, Dorella McCorkle, taught her to type in the early grades because it was difficult for her to write with a pencil at that time. “I was the first disabled person in my county to go to a regular school,” Leslie said.
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