One Step Childrens Physio
...helping children flourish one step at a time
What is paediatric physiotherapy?
Paediatric physiotherapy is the treatment and care of babies, children and young people from birth to 19 years.
Paediatric physiotherapists bring a range of skills as physiotherapists and have additional specialist knowledge and experience of child development and of childhood conditions.
What do paediatric physiotherapists do?
Intervention is based upon an assessment of the child’s needs and the formation of an individual treatment programme.
Paediatric physiotherapists recognise the importance of working in partnership with the child, parents and carers to maximise a child’s physical abilities and independence.
(Source: https://apcp.csp.org.uk/information-parents)
Importance of Crawling
Crawling is hugely important for babies to develop core, hip and shoulder girdle muscle strength. It helps promote the strength/stability to develop pre-walking skills (pulling to stand, movement at furniture and independent standing) and ultimately independent walking.
Also, movement in a crawling position aids the development of the arches of the hands the ability to have one part of the hand stabilising while the other part is more skilfully grasping or manipulating a toy. This will promote more independent play skills (to grasp and relocate the blocks/bricks, farm animals, balls, stacking cups or rings, often to the furthest reaches of your living room or entire house!!).
What sleep-deprived (we’ve been there!!!) parents of babies can sometimes fail to grasp is the longer term importance of this early strengthening beyond the infant years (when your little baby becomes a pre-schooler or early school-aged child, beginning to use scissors, write their homework, hop, ride a bike/scooter or learn to swim).
Crawling – a baby’s first method of independent mobility also improves bilateral co-ordination (working opposite sides of the body together), hand-eye co-ordination (useful for throwing/catching) , spatial awareness (of where the body is in relation to people or objects) and early problem solving skills (how to get under the table or over to the cookies).
Importance of Play
Play has a vital role in the development of a child’s physical ability (practicing Gross Motor activities with frequent repetition which serves to refine and enhance the learned skill), appropriate balance reactions and co-ordination which will be needed for more complex activities as they mature.
It is during play that children are first introduced to the social concepts of turn-taking and sharing and the spatial concepts of over/under/through/round. This contributes greatly to their intellectual, social and emotional development
The combination of these physical and non-physical developments ultimately encourages better self confidence and a more positive self image.
