According to the Center of Disease Control, Cerebral Palsy is the most common motor disability in childhood and causes abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain that affects a person’s ability to control his or her muscles. In the United States, 1 in 323 children have cerebral palsy.
Although Cerebral Palsy is known to affect the way a child walks, many children are able to overcome their disability. For example, one girl in Colorado refuses to let her disability define her.
A Colorado rodeo queen flies on horseback, but sometimes has trouble walking. Skyler Baker has cerebral palsy, and her small town says there is no one better to represent their “grit.”
Skyler Baker was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was 8 months old, which restricts movement in her right hand and right leg, but she refuses to let the disorder define her. “I don’t feel different,” said Baker. “I’m unique, just like everyone else.”
Baker was riding horses before she could walk, and showed an early talent for barrel racing. She has to work twice as hard to balance and force herself to use both hands, and when she gets bucked off, she gets right back on. “She has good old cowboy grit,” said her father, Doug Baker. “It’s nothing special to us. It is just our way of life.”
Skyler’s parents, Doug and Kristy Baker, said that the doctor said that she would never play sports, but they didn’t let that define her. They bought her a horse and she learned to ride. Watch 16-year old Skyler ride below.
