A 13-year-old Manoa girl is heading to a special clinic in California later this month to help her learn ways to cope with what could be lifelong disabilities from injuries she sustained when a huge tree crashed through the roof of her bedroom in March.

Rick Fried, the attorney for Julia Engle and her parents, said Julia will spend most of December undergoing "cognitive rehabilitation" at the Casa Colina center in Pomona.

Fried said Julia had completed about two-thirds of her seventh-grade studies at Punahou School when a diseased Cook Island pine snapped at its base and crashed through the roof of the bedroom where she was sleeping, fracturing her skull.

Julia lay in a coma for about two weeks after the accident, but she began to improve gradually after surgery to remove pressure from brain swelling and to remove blood clots that had formed in her brain, Fried said.

He said Julia was well enough to start eighth grade with her classmates this fall, but had trouble keeping up.

"She's continuing to recover, but she's gone from having a very open and bubbly personality prior to the accident to displaying what is called a very 'flat affect' afterward," Fried said.

The accident left her substantially weaker and her doctor has yet to OK her return to cheerleading, gymnastics and hula, Fried said.

He said Julia suffers from both short- and long-term memory lapses and "realizes she's not the same person she was prior to the injury."

After she was injured on March 17, Julia was hospitalized initially in the intensive-care unit at The Queen's Medical Center; was transferred to the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific on April 15; and was allowed to return home on May 6.

Fried said Julia still goes to the rehab hospital several times a week on an outpatient basis. He said the kind of therapy Julia will receive in California is not available in Hawai'i.

At Casa Colina, Julia will receive two to three hours a day of physical therapy, a like amount of school classes and about an hour a day of counseling.

After Julia returns in late December, an assessment will be made on how best to address her educational needs, Fried said.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.