Pediatric Physiotherapy
Gentle therapy to support your child’s development
What is pediatric physiotherapy?
A pediatric physiotherapy has specialized training in supporting normal movement development. Your child may be developing asymmetrical movement patterns, or may be slow or late to develop normal movement or gross motor milestones.
Any of the following health concerns below could indicate that your baby may be having difficulty developing normal movement and could benefit from pediatric physiotherapy:
- Flat-head syndrome (torticollis/plagiocephaly)
- Difficulty tolerating tummy time
- Asymmetrical movement (some examples: preference to turn head to one side only, rolling to one side only, crawling with one foot planted)
- Difficulty with independent sitting and sitting balance
not transitioning into various sitting positions - W-sitting
- Delayed crawling
- Bum-scooting
- Difficulty with independent standing and standing balance
- Delayed walking
- Toe-walking
- Delayed gross motor milestones
- Cerebral Palsy
- Down’s Syndrome
The benefits of pediatric physiotherapy include:
- Facilitates age-appropriate gross motor skills
- Promotes normal and symmetrical movement patterns
- Improves posture
- Treats muscle weakness and tightness
- Improved balance reactions and coordination
- Promotes normal mobility
- Improves walking pattern
- Normalizes muscle tone
- Helps kids participate normally in their day-to-day activities, including play!
A pediatric physiotherapist will do a full history and physical assessment to determine the factors that are contributing to abnormal or delayed movement development.
The history will include your pregnancy and labour/delivery and the development and health of other systems (such as digestive/cardiovascular/cognitive/language/fine motor/sensory systems) including any other pertinent medical history.
The physical assessment will include assessment of head and neck function, shoulder, trunk, pelvic and hip mobility and strength, core strategies and reactions, equilibrium reactions, general muscle tone levels and gross motor function.
Your physiotherapist will develop interventions to optimize normal muscle strength, tone, general mobility and gross motor function to promote normal movement development.
Normal movement requires integration of many sensory systems, interventions will be tailored to your child's specific sensory needs, including NDT (Neurodevelopmental Technique) and CME (Cueves Medek Exercises) techniques.