Typical of most 2-year-olds, Mason Shaw of Orem likes to play with his older brother, laughs when you tickle his feet and hates to be still.

Yet unlike most toddlers his age, Mason was born with an extremely rare skin disorder and complications including deafness, blindness, cerebral palsy, and lung and heart disease caused by brain damage due to his premature delivery at 27 weeks.

The genetic skin disorder, congenital lamellar ichthyosis, causes his body to overproduce his skin in thin and dry layers that are continually peeling off. Each day Mason has to be in the bath tub two hours and have multiple lotion applications just to keep his skin healthy and hydrated.

"He looked like a burn victim," said his mother Kerry Shaw. "At one point he just really didn't have very much skin."

Only 19 children a year are born in the U.S. with Mason's skin disorder, she said, and most don't have the severe complications associated with a premature birth.

Doctors gave Kerry and her husband Spencer a bleak prognosis, saying because of the hypertonicity of Mason's muscles related to the cerebral palsy, he probably wouldn't ever be able to roll over.

But much to his parents' delight, two months ago the wiggly Mason rolled over at home.

Despite the boy's many physical challenges, Kerry Shaw said her son is making progress. She said he loves to rough house with older brother Ethan, 3, play in the water and be thrown in the air.

"He's happy," she said. "He didn't use to be."

For months, Mason has been going weekly to the Utah Valley Pediatric Rehabilitation program on the Orem Community Hospital campus for speech, occupational and physical therapy. Though physical therapist Ben Norton works with Mason every week, he said the boy was having trouble using the traditional therapeutic walkers available at the clinic.

Norton, who has two disabled children of his own, was talking to Mark Kristensen who with his wife co-founded Angel's Hands Foundation, a nonprofit charity that aids families who have children with rare medical conditions. Kristensen asked Norton what equipment his pediatric patients needed and Norton told him about Mason's hardships using the walkers.

Angel's Hands responded by purchasing a $3,600 state-of-the-art therapeutic trainer called Lite Gait for the pediatric clinic to help Mason and other patients.

Kristensen, who lost his son Matt to a rare disease, said the success of the foundation is due to generous people in Utah who make contributions that assist the children and their families.

"It's just a shame insurance doesn't take care of these kinds of things," he said.

On Tuesday, Mason, strapped into the crane-like device with wheels, steadily made his way down the hall during therapy with Norton.

With the Lite Gait trainer supporting most of Mason's weight, Norton can let the boy experiment more and have fun as he learns to use the muscles in his legs and feet.

He said at least two to three other pediatric patients are using the Lite Gait trainer, and there's potential for a lot of others with cerebral palsy.

Mason's mother said she doesn't know if her son will ever be able to walk fully unaided, but she says the therapy he's receiving with the Lite Gait trainer is helping him experience a sense of physical freedom and coordination he never has before.

"The idea is that in his mind he can make it on his own. Maybe he'll try more," she said, adding that due to his sight and hearing limitations, he's often not very aware of his surroundings.

"Now that he's moving and walking he knows that something exists."

For more information about Angel's Hands Foundation, visit www.angelshands.org or contact Mark or Roxann Kristensen at (801) 280-1801.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.