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cerebral palsy

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Fitness coach and child with cerebral palsy inspire each other through long-distance mentorship

"I want Colbie to know that she can pick up the phone and call me for whatever reason."

Fitness coach and child with cerebral palsy inspire each other.

Everybody needs someone who can relate to them; it's one of the things that connects the human experience. For a 5-year-old New Jersey girl named Colbie Durborow, that connection came just in time. Colbie has been noticing people staring at her lately as she gets around using leg braces, a walker and sometimes a wheelchair, and she told her mom that she doesn't like it when people stare.

"She said, 'Mommy I don't like when people stare at me. Mommy, I don't like it, I want them to stop,'" Colbie's mom, Amanda Durborow, told CBS Mornings.

Colbie was born 17 weeks early and has cerebral palsy (CP), a group of disorders that affect balance, mobility and posture, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her mom connected with former CrossFit trainer Steph Roach on Instagram, and the two became friends.

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6 things you wanted to know about my cerebral palsy but were too afraid to ask.

When I meet new people, I know they have questions about my life. But all too often, they’re too afraid to ask them.

When I was about a year old, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

I don’t know much about the day I came into the world or what caused my cerebral palsy because I’m adopted. I was born on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, presumably without proper prenatal care. Someone, who I’m assuming was my birth mother, had enough sense to drop me off at a police station with a note that read: “Please adopt her to a family that can raise her.”

A few months later, I joined my very large family in America. I was almost 11 months old.

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How ABC's 'Speechless' is changing attitudes about disability.

'Speechless' matters because inclusivity on TV promotes inclusivity in life.

Over six decades ago, a disabled character starred on a TV show for the very first time.

She was a woman and a wheelchair-using attorney, and she starred in "Martinsville, U.S.A." The program, a 15-minute soap opera, featured actress Susan Peters. In the storyline, she had moved back to her hometown of Martinsville, Ohio, to begin her own law practice.

Use of the wheelchair — unlike later instances, like Robert T. Ironside (a former cop who became a consultant for the San Francisco Police Department after being paralyzed from the waist down after getting shot in the line of duty) — wasn’t simply a plot device. Peters, who was paralyzed due to a hunting accident just a few years earlier, used a wheelchair both onscreen and off.

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Dear able-bodied partner,

At your predecessor’s apartment, I always took my shoes off as soon as I walked in. It wasn’t a house rule, but an effort to speed things along. My orthotics make shoe removal a complex procedure involving clasps, straps, and — much less sexy — a foam pad that looks like a Pringle. (If you don’t flinch at the Pringle, you’re a keeper.) It’s a clumsy detour to take once you’re making out so, as usual, I thought ahead.

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