Therapeutic Benefits

Angela Campbell, MS, APE Specialist, discusses the role of the collaborative special education team towards helping children achieve their adapted physical education goals.

Sitting. Standing. Walking. These three basic activities – plus the ability to transition between them – allow us to do all the other things that are important to us, to live life to the fullest. But for someone with profound disabilities they can present huge challenges. Indeed, for many years, they were impossible challenges. Until the MOVE™ program.

In schools and facilities serving those with disabilities, adaptive equipment is used all the time to position participants for education, vocation and recreation. The positioning protocol is a helpful tool with which practitioners and caregivers can reliably communicate key positioning instructions for their clients to various team members. Download PDF (76.2 KB)

These three assumptions provide the basis for understanding motor learning and practice in children with severe disabilities. Motor Learning Assumption 1: Learning is one of the most significant ways that we know in which change can be induced in the CNS in response to the environment (which includes the therapist) or the actions of the individual. Strong support for this assumption may be found in the...

The Rifton Support Station enables diapering, toileting and hygiene care to occur in a comfortable, convenient and dignified standing position. Greater independence and dignity: Putting an end to infant-like horizontal hygiene can have dramatic emotional benefits. Even people with very limited weight-bearing ability can now participate in their own personal care. Less time out: Faster than...

Ambulation is defined as the ability to walk from place to place, with or without an assistive device. Locomotion is the ability to move from one place to the next. In human development, independent mobility begins with the locomotion of crawling, and progresses to upright ambulation. During typical development...

Prolonged immobility in a sitting or lying position can result in contractures, skeletal deformity, skin ulcers, and digestion, respiration, or circulatory system deficits for special needs children. However, independent standing requires the ability to extend the hips and knees, and bear weight to hold the body upright against gravity. The different types of joints in the body require different amounts...

By Mark P. Warner, PT, ATP Pediatric physical therapy has been my career for almost fifteen years. Working in a variety of settings, including acute care, school-based therapy and outpatient rehabilitation, has allowed me to witness the benefits children with special needs gain from using assistive technology. During the past ten years, a considerable amount of my continuing education has focused on...

The Rifton Anchor stabilizes the user's arm to provide upper trunk support. An Anchor can assist a user affected by uncontrolled motor movement and can be used alone or together with another Anchor. Upper extremity stabilization allows the user better control and function of the arm that is free. Stability: The Arm Anchor and the Elbow Anchor used as an arm stabilizer can help a child sit upright at a...

Lorraine C. Peniston selected excerpts, Sagamore Publishing, 1998 FOREWORD by Regina Cicci, Ph.D. Perhaps nothing reveals so much about individuals as how they choose to play - how they invest their time and energy for leisure time. Leisure is that time free from demands of school, work, or required activities of daily living. Everyone needs regular recreation that develops skills, promotes good health...