Early childhood development is a critical phase that lays the foundation for a child’s future growth and capabilities. Among the many milestones that parents eagerly anticipate, walking is one of the most significant. Physical therapists (PTs) often emphasize kids should walk by 16 months, and here’s why.

The Importance of Early Walking

1. Developmental Milestones: Walking is a major developmental milestone that signals a child’s progression in motor skills. By 16 months, most children have developed the muscle strength, coordination, and balance required to take their first steps. Reaching this milestone on time is an indicator that a child’s physical development is on track.

2. Enhanced Mobility and Exploration: Walking allows children to explore their environment more freely. This increased mobility is crucial for cognitive development, as it enables them to interact more with their surroundings, learn new things, and develop problem-solving skills. Consequently, the ability to move around independently fosters curiosity and aids in the overall learning process.

3. Social and Emotional Development: When children start walking, they gain a sense of independence. This autonomy boosts their confidence and encourages them to engage more with their peers and caregivers. Walking also facilitates play, which is essential for social interaction and emotional development. Moreover, it allows children to participate in activities that require movement, fostering social skills and emotional well-being.

4. Physical Health and Fitness: Early walking contributes to better physical health. It helps in strengthening the muscles and bones, improves cardiovascular health, and aids in maintaining a healthy weight. Furthermore, regular movement is vital for developing good posture and overall physical fitness, which are crucial throughout life.

Addressing Delays in Walking

If a child is not walking by 16 months, physical therapists can assess and address potential underlying issues. These could include muscle weakness, coordination problems, or neurological concerns. Therefore, early intervention is key to addressing any delays, and PTs can develop personalized treatment plans to help children catch up to their developmental milestones.

The Role of Parents and Caregivers

Parents and caregivers play a vital role in encouraging early walking by providing a safe and supportive environment, offering plenty of floor time, and engaging in interactive play can motivate children to practice walking. For instance, simple activities like holding hands while walking, using push toys, and creating obstacle courses can make the learning process fun and engaging. Here are some more activities to work on to get your child ready to walk.

In addition, it is important for parents to model walking behavior and provide positive reinforcement when their child makes progress. Encouragement and patience are key, as each child develops at their own pace.

In conclusion, PTs believe kids should walk by 16 months because this is a significant indicator of a child’s healthy development. Ultimately, early walking sets the stage for a lifetime of active and healthy living, making it a crucial focus in early childhood development.

As new parents, we often find ourselves eagerly awaiting the milestones and developments our little ones will reach. Among these is the development of their vision, a crucial aspect of their growth. And what better way to give their amazing little eyes a head start than through the wonder of tummy time! Let’s learn about how tummy time connects with vision.

Tummy time isn’t just about building strength in those adorable little neck and arm muscles. It also plays a vital role in the development of your baby’s vision. When your baby is on their tummy, they will naturally lift and turn their head. This action engages their eye muscles. This movement helps them focus on objects and track them visually, ultimately enhancing their visual tracking skills. 

During tummy time, your baby’s eyes are exposed to a constantly changing sensory landscape. They get to see the world from a different perspective and discover new things around them. This visual stimulation is essential for the development of their visual acuity and depth perception. By spending time on their tummy, babies learn to visually coordinate their hands and eyes. This improves their hand-eye coordination, a skill that will serve them well as they grow. 

It’s fascinating to witness how tummy time helps babies explore their surroundings and discover new objects. By being on their tummy, they have an up-close and personal view of toys, a book, or even the loving faces of their caregivers. This close interaction and visual exploration during tummy time aids in the development of their visual focusing abilities. It also helps their ability to discriminate between different shapes and colors. 

Tummy time is an incredible opportunity for your baby to not only strengthen their muscles but also develop and refine their visual skills. By engaging in this simple yet impactful activity, your little one will be well on their way to achieving wonderful milestones in their visual development. So, let’s celebrate tummy time, promote vision, and embrace the joy of watching our little ones grow, one captivating gaze at a time! 

It is beneficial to develop your child’s vocabulary from an early age because children with strong vocabularies do better in school. There is a strong connection between vocabulary and reading comprehension. However, children will not learn vocabulary effectively by drilling words with flashcards. Plus, flashcards are boring.

Strategies to Develop Stronger Vocabulary

• Introduce only one word at a time and use it frequently. It may be helpful to choose a word that is of interest to your toddler, such as butterfly, or a word from the school curriculum for your elementary school aged child, such as merchant.  
• Describe the word by talking about its physical characteristics, where you might find it, or what you think about it. For example, while watching a butterfly, describe its color, how it moves and the plants on which it lands. For a word such as merchant, define the word and identify merchants in your community and reference them each time you shop. Provide multiple exposures to the word in many different settings for effective learning.
• Define the word. Have your child define the word using their own words. Help them keep the definition simple and easy to remember.
• Choose words from a variety of word categories. It is easy to focus on nouns (things), but also try to include verbs (actions), adjectives (describes a noun) and adverbs (modifies a verb or another adverb).
• Play word games. Fill down time with word games such as Twenty Questions. One person chooses a word and then all players take turns asking questions to figure out the word. Parents can choose newly learned words.
• Relate a new word to known words. Ask your child what other words go with the new word.  For butterfly, it could be insect, flower, flying, etc. For merchant it could be storekeeper, store, money, etc.
• Illustrate with pictures. Ask your child to draw a picture of the word. For an older child, practice spelling the word by having them write the word to go with the picture, or just spell the word out loud.
• Use the word. Encourage your child to also use the word several times in the day.
• Encourage interest in new words. Teach your child to recognize words that they have not heard before, and use the above strategies to make the identified word part of their vocabulary.
• Talk at dinnertime. Enriching conversation with adults not only exposes children to more words, it increases their world knowledge.
• Read to or with your child. Even older children benefit from shared reading, especially if reading is hard.

And don’t forget to keep up with your summer reading to prevent your child from losing skills they have already learned!

If you’re one of the millions who suffer from chronic headaches or migraines, you know how debilitating they can be. The throbbing pain, light sensitivity, and nausea from a headache can bring your life to a standstill. While medication can provide temporary relief, physical therapy offers a drug-free approach to treating headaches by addressing the underlying causes.

During treatment sessions, physical therapists perform comprehensive evaluations to identify which factors are contributing to your headaches. Some common causes they might uncover include:

Common Causes of Headaches

• Muscle Tightness and Trigger Points – Chronic tension in the muscles of the neck, shoulders, and upper back can refer pain to the head. Trigger points (muscle knots) are often involved.
• Poor Posture – Forward head and rounded shoulder postures can overstretch the muscles and put increased strain on the joints, leading to headaches. Our modern lifestyle of sitting hunched over computers or devices exacerbates these postural issues. 
• Jaw Dysfunction – Jaw clenching/grinding habits and TMJ disorders can cause referred pain, often felt in the temples. Strength imbalances in jaw muscles can also contribute to postural issues in the neck. 
• Nerve Impingement – Compression or irritation of nerves in the neck can manifest as headache pain. Nerve impingement can also cause numbness, tingling, and muscle weakness in addition to headaches.  
• Injury – Whiplash, concussion or other head/neck injuries can lead to ongoing headaches if not properly rehabilitated. Lingering muscle tension often occurs following these injuries. 

How Physical Therapy Treats Headaches

Once the source is pinpointed, your physical therapist can create a specialized treatment plan to address the root causes. Depending on the factors involved, this may include manual therapy, therapeutic exercise, dry needling, and posture retraining. 

If chronic headaches are disrupting your life, don’t just mask the symptoms with medication. Try physical therapy to get to the root cause and provide lasting headache relief through a personalized treatment program.

Hippotherapy is a therapeutic approach that utilizes the movement of the horse. It is gaining recognition as a valuable component of occupational therapy interventions. This approach involves using the natural, rhythmic movement of horses to address a wide range of physical, emotional, and cognitive challenges faced by individuals with disabilities. Why hippotherapy though? Hippotherapy can be a valuable tool for addressing a wide range of challenges and promoting overall functional independence for clients.  

Benefits of Hippotherapy

From a physical standpoint, the three-dimensional movement of the horse’s gait provides sensory input. This input can be particularly beneficial for individuals with sensory processing difficulties. The horse provides a dynamic base of support making it an excellent tool to address gross motor skills. The gentle and rhythmic motion promotes postural control, balance, and coordination, making it an effective tool for addressing motor challenges.

In addition, the emotional and psychological benefits of engaging with horses are significant. Many clients experience a sense of empowerment and increased self-confidence through their interactions with these gentle animals. This leads to improvements in mood and overall well-being.

As well, the human-animal bond that forms during hippotherapy sessions can foster trust and emotional connections. These are integral to the therapeutic process. From a social perspective, hippotherapy presents opportunities for individuals to engage in meaningful interactions with the therapy team, volunteers, and peers. These interactions can support the development of social skills, enhance communication abilities, and provide opportunities for social participation in a unique and motivating environment.

In summary, the incorporation of hippotherapy into occupational therapy interventions offers a holistic and dynamic approach to addressing the diverse needs of clients. By capitalizing on the basic qualities of horses, occupational therapists can help their clients achieve therapeutic goals in a unique and engaging way. This ultimately enhances their quality of life and functional independence. Programs, such as Eagle Mount, offer opportunities for horsemanship programs. If this is something you think could benefit your child, talk to your OT. Check out this video to learn more about hippotherapy.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a condition in which people experience deteriorating memory, language, and cognitive function more than expected for their age, health and education. The symptoms are not as severe as a person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. Individuals with MCI can usually complete everyday activities and hobbies without help. Unlike many types of dementia, an individual with MCI is often aware of their memory problems. There is a possibility that MCI can lead to more severe forms of dementia, and thus it is of concern. Not everyone who has a diagnosis of MCI goes on to develop severe dementia.

Types of Mild Cognitive Impairment

There are two types of MCI; amnestic MCI and non-amnestic memory loss. With amnestic MCI, the primary symptom is loss of memory. So, an individual may forget conversations or misplace things. In non-amnestic MCI, the primary symptoms are difficulty with planning, organizing and judgement. Memory loss is a lesser symptom. Non-amnestic MCI may present as losing a train of thought, not staying on task or getting loss in a familiar place.

Dementia, on the other hand, is a severe progressive disease that interferes with the ability to perform everyday activities. Individuals with dementia often require help with daily care. The greater the severity of dementia, the more assistance they need. Memory and cognition are severely affected and become worse over time. Symptoms exhibited by dementia typically also include personality and behavior changes such as agitation or aggression. Behavior and personality changes are not evident in people with MCI.

Symptoms exhibited by MCI may be due to medication, but also to health conditions such as diminished blood supply to the brain. Unlike progressive forms of dementia, you can manage or even reverse symptoms of MCI. For this reason, accurate diagnosis is essential to treatment of the condition.

Dementia has many causes including brain injury, infection such as prion diseases, vascular problems and genetic mutations. Unlike MCI, the symptoms of dementia cannot be reversed. Physical therapy can help manage some of the physical symptoms. Medication may slow the progression of the disease or help manage associated behavioral changes. Medication will not treat the disease itself.