BOSTON -- A comatose girl whose right-to-die case went all the way to the state's high court this week is suddenly improving.

NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported that Haleigh Poutre, 11, of Westfield, Mass., is still hospitalized in western Massachusetts. She's in the custody of the state Department of Social Services, whose spokeswoman told the Boston Globe that the child is now breathing on her own, without the ventilator she's relied on for the last four months.

The state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday that DSS could withdraw life support after doctors said the girl was in an irreversible coma. But now it appears Haleigh may be emerging from her vegetative state. DSS has no immediate plans to remove her feeding tube.

Doctors in Springfield, Mass., have elicited responses from Haleigh and plan more tests. The girl has been on life support since a brutal beating in September, allegedly at the hands of her adoptive mother, Holli Strickland, and stepfather, Jason Strickland. He could face murder charges if she dies and had fought to keep the child on life support, but the courts ruled he had no say in the case.

Allison Avrett, Haleigh's biological mother, told the Globe she has observed the girl making movements that have caused her to reconsider her previous view that Haleigh was better off being allowed to die.

Doctors said it is rare for a patient who has been in a persistent vegetative state for more than a month to recover, but, they said, if anyone could it would be a child because children's brains have more plasticity.