Keywords
neuroplasticity, therapy, children, early intervention, DMI, MNRI, TheraSuit, sensory processing, brain recovery, reflex integration
Summary
In this conversation, Franchesca Cox and Megan Williams delve into the concept of neuroplasticity and its significance in therapy for children facing various challenges. They discuss how neuroplasticity allows the brain to reorganize itself and adapt after injuries, emphasizing the importance of early intervention and intensive therapy. The conversation highlights different therapeutic modalities, including DMI and MNRI, and their effectiveness in promoting neuroplasticity. Real-life success stories illustrate the profound impact of these therapies on children’s development and recovery.
Takeaways
- Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself.
- Intensive therapy can lead to significant progress in a short time.
- Early intervention is crucial for optimal outcomes in therapy.
- Consistency in therapy is key to achieving neuroplasticity benefits.
- Different therapeutic modalities can effectively promote neuroplasticity.
- Real-life success stories demonstrate the power of neuroplasticity in therapy.
- Parents play a vital role in supporting their child’s therapy at home.
- Research is essential to validate the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches.
- Neuroplasticity principles guide the selection of therapy modalities.
- Creating new pathways in the brain is essential for recovery.
- Unlocking the Brain’s Potential: Neuroplasticity Explained
- The Power of Early Intervention in Therapy
- “Intensive therapy can lead to faster progress.”
- “Therapy doesn’t just happen in the clinic.”
- “We need to create completely new pathways.”
Resources Mentioned:
Paul Bach-y-Rita on Neuroplasticity
Chapters
00:00 Understanding Neuroplasticity
01:46 Breaking Down Neuroplasticity in Therapy with Children
07:35 What the Research is Saying About Neuroplasticity
07:53 The Role of Intensive Therapy
10:15 Using Mirror Therapy With Children
14:05 Research and Evidence in Therapy
16:49 Partnered Progress Intensives
18:22 Therapeutic Approaches and Neuroplasticity
22:36 DMI Therapy and Neuroplasticity
27:19 Real-Life Success Stories
30:50 Unlocking Potential Through Neuroplasticity
32:20 Medical Disclaimer
32:39 Insights for Parents
Show Transcript
Franchesca Cox (00:01)
Hi there, I’m Francesca Cox, an occupational therapist based in Houston, Texas. Over the years, I’ve had the incredible honor of working with children who have neuromuscular conditions, rare genetic disorders, and developmental delays. Using approaches like DMI therapy and TheraSuit, I’ve seen firsthand the resilience and strength of these amazing kids and their families. Each day brings new lessons, and my passion is to empower families with the tools and knowledge to support their child’s journey.
Megan Williams (00:26)
And I’m Megan Williams, a speech language pathologist also based in Houston, Texas. I specialize in feeding therapy and I’m an MNRI core specialist. I’ve worked with children facing feeding challenges and sensory processing issues using reflex integration techniques to support the brain body connection and help children thrive.
My mission is to guide families through the often complex world of feeding and communication, empowering them to support their child’s growth with confidence.
Franchesca Cox (00:58)
are here to share insights, practical strategies, and heartfelt stories that can help you navigate the unique challenges and joys of raising a child with special needs.
Megan Williams (01:07)
We know every family’s journey is different, but our goal is to create a supportive space where you feel seen, heard, and equipped with the knowledge to help your child reach their fullest potential.
Franchesca Cox (01:19)
whether you’re looking for therapy techniques, expert advice, or just a sense of community, you’re in the right place.
Megan Williams (01:25)
Let’s explore this journey together filled with hope, growth, and endless possibilities.
Megan Williams (01:31)
Welcome back to Little Brains Big Steps. Today we’re diving into a topic at the heart of our therapy approaches. It’s neuroplasticity.
Franchesca Cox (01:40)
We decided to take this episode on neuroplasticity and break it into two parts and we hope you enjoy.
Franchesca Cox (01:46)
We’re breaking down what the term neuroplasticity means, sharing key research and explaining why it’s such a game changer for therapy.
Megan Williams (01:53)
Understanding neuroplasticity gives us so much hope. It’s the science behind why progress is possible, even when some medical professionals say that the path is going to be impossible.
Franchesca Cox (02:09)
So what does neuroplasticity mean, Megan?
Megan Williams (02:09)
So.
Neuroplasticity is defined by Dr. Michael Mirzenich. He’s an expert in neuroplasticity out of Southern California. He’s one of the innovators who helped create the cochlear implant. So he defines it as the brain’s powerful ability to change itself and adapt. And then Dr. Norman Deutsch, the author of The Brain That Heals Itself and
the brain’s way of healing. He defines neuroplasticity as the brain’s ability to change its structure and function in response to mental experience and activity. So these two definitions are kind of similar. They definitely are impacted by their medical backgrounds, but Francesca and I, we define it as the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt.
and reorganize itself by forming new neural connections in response to sensory motor and cognitive experiences. So really focusing from our therapy backgrounds and what we do every day to look at the sensory and then the motor and the cognitive pieces of those experiences.
Franchesca Cox (03:30)
Yeah, love that.
Megan Williams (03:31)
We really feel like through targeted integrative techniques such as reflex integration and DMI and other really sensory rich activities that we can stimulate the brain and body to create more efficient pathways for all of our goals, movement, communication, regulation, everything. It’s all connected. So I heard a while back,
Francesca, and you may have heard this too, a really good analogy to kind of explain neuroplasticity is no matter if a person is considered typically developing neurodiverse or someone who’s had a brain injury at birth or even later in life, if you think of it as like a trail system through a forest. So you have some paths that are really worn.
well-worn and they’re paved kind of like the toll roads here in Texas. We know those are like super cared for because we’re paying to use them. And then other pathways need a little bit of help to be cleared. So somebody needs to come through and do some weed whacking and just kind of clean up the trail. And then sometimes we even need to make new paths. So maybe something happens and there’s a landmass.
change or something and you need a new pathway that goes around maybe this you know something that’s in the way and so yeah so you have to create a new pathway altogether and I hope that was a really good example because it kind of helps me visualize what this looks like
Franchesca Cox (05:00)
Like a detour, right? Yeah.
Yeah, that’s how I explain it to families as well. It’s very similar.
Megan Williams (05:17)
Yeah,
yeah, it makes sense. So neuroplasticity is the foundation of the skill acquisition and recovery. So in layman terms, what does this mean? Neuroplasticity allows the brain to adjust after an injury by using healthy areas to take over function from damaged parts.
So it can also create a new pathway to support recovery. you can read about in literature, Paul Bakke-Rita, and I will put some stuff in the show notes about him. He was able to use his family member who was able to kind of sustain, he sustained a big neurological injury and
they were able to see kind of like how his therapy progressed and how his brain was able to compensate for things like he was rock climbing, mountain climbing, doing all these things. know, when he was having big parts of his brain were impacted by the stroke and strokes that he sustained.
And they were like, how is this even happening? Like you have very little healthy brain functioning.
And then learning new skills and rebuilding old ones. So this kind of means that with repeated practice, the brain strengthens its connections. So we help children regain their lost abilities and learn new skills for movement, communication, and fine, gross motor, all the skills that we’re working on.
faster progress and greater independence. So this looks like intensive therapy coming in to work on a deeper level than our kind of weekly therapy sessions. It helps make changes in the brain more quickly because you’re combining movement, sensory work, other kind of neuro-focused activities and it leads to better coordination and
know, this long-term independence that is what we’re really working towards. Because you’re really working on those pathways and not just teaching or re-teaching a skill.
Franchesca Cox (07:35)
Okay, so I wanted to touch on some research highlights regarding neuroplasticity. So the compelling research studies and findings show that, like Megan said, intensive repetitive activities make all the difference when we’re trying to reorganize those neural pathways or even create new ones.
So the studies show that early intervention is best for children. The earlier we have access to work with them, the brain has a heightened ability to adapt and teach these children new skills. Some of the things that, so some of the trainings that I’ve been to, and I’m sure Megan, you can say the same, they all emphasize that neuroplasticity is.
key. It is the foundation for what we do. And it doesn’t just happen in the clinic, it happens. Both Megan and I are very strong, we feel very strongly that the magic starts in the clinic, but it continues at home. And a lot of times the results don’t come until they get back home, they get back into their routine. And the brain has time after that intensive to process and get through all that new information that it was just fed through the intensive.
Megan Williams (08:17)
Mm-hmm.
Franchesca Cox (08:39)
A lot of times the intensive is just so much new information. The child’s, a lot of times their sleep pattern is different. A lot of times they’re, even they’re, I’ve found that their appetite is different. So I like to warn parents that everything’s going to be a little crazy for a week or two or maybe three, sometimes even five weeks, depending on how long they’re in the clinic. But it is so worth it. When you think they would be tired, they’re not, but it’s because their brain is trying to reorganize itself and just make, like Megan was saying, those new pathways for this new information.
Some of the things that, like in the TheraSuit training, they emphasize, they have the research, almost I think 30 years of research to show that it’s not just two or three times a week
for years and years of therapy, that makes a difference. It’s going every day for hours at a time with, of course, breaks as needed. But that makes the difference. You get the progress that you would get in a year of therapy in a few weeks because you’re getting that neuroplasticity. You’re capitalizing on neuroplasticity. And another modality is constraint induced movement therapy, where I have not had the official training, but I have seen the research. I’ve had patients that have
come through that have definitely done some of this in other clinics. And you see the result because the brain is learning to use that affected side by constraining the unaffected side. So the body and the brain are working together to help this child learn how to use their affected side. Another one is mirror therapy. And I wish I knew the name of the person that I could credit this to. But I recently had a patient within one session, no, two sessions.
that mom was telling me this hand function improved dramatically and we only really did mirror therapy for maybe 30 minutes. So it was really, really neat to watch him use that mirror and those mirror neurons to teach his affected side, his hand, how to open and close and get a little bit more function in that affected side. So that is super cool. And one of the things that I wanted to mention also was
in the book Atomic Habits, I don’t know if you’ve read that, Megan, or not. It’s a really good book. And when you were talking about there was a person that you mentioned, how he went through, I think through a traumatic injury. It reminded me of James Clear because he starts the book out why he created this crazy habit system, which is so…
Megan Williams (10:42)
No, I haven’t.
Franchesca Cox (11:02)
so prevalent now. see the habit stacking all over the internet and they’re really, it’s all due to his book that he talks about habit stacking and maybe he got it from somewhere, I’m not really sure. But I definitely saw it first in his book and he went through, I have to go back, it’s been a while since I listened to the book, but he talks about how he went through a traumatic
brain injury, I think through an athletic sport in college or something. And he had to learn how to function again as an adult. And he depended on this rigorous, consistent day after day routine of habit stacking and building this system that worked for him. But it’s all based on neuroplasticity. It’s fascinating. Of course, the book is not about neuroplasticity, but it definitely highlights what we’re talking about here.
that it’s across the lifespan. So the reason that research matters is because I don’t know about MNRI, but I know for DMI, we get a lot of flack for, well, there’s not the research. And most of the time it’s therapists that just don’t know a whole lot about DMI or maybe CME, which is very similar to DMI. And they’re just seeing things on the Internet, social media, and they’re not they’re not talking to parents who
whose children are finding almost immediate results from this type of therapy. So it might be anecdotal. I know there’s tiers of research, like the, help me with that word. It’s like the randomized control, the RCTs, right? Yeah, so they’re not there yet. And I don’t know that we ever will because it involves children. Yeah.
Megan Williams (12:34)
control studies.
It’s really hard to even
look at therapy because of the way you have to be specialized in a provider of the therapy so you know you’re giving the therapy and it’s… yes.
Franchesca Cox (12:48)
Yeah.
It’s
a lot of money, it’s a lot of time to have, and there’s so many variables, not saying that research is not important, it is definitely important, but the research, we definitely are seeing more people doing research in DMI therapy, just so that we can eventually get this covered by the insurances, because right now, insurance is saying, and of course we talked about this in the last episode, but,
they consider it experimental. They definitely consider it theracid experimental, even though we have 30 years of research, which is crazy to me because I don’t know how much more research we can possibly have, but it definitely helps validate the effectiveness of these steps of research. And for the parents that might be on the fence that maybe they’re going back and forth on, the cost worth it?
or maybe they have a therapist at home that’s like, no, it’s not really, you you don’t, really should get a evidence-based approach. And this, if they have that, that peace of mind that’s saying there is some research out there, that is why the research really matters is to just encourage more people who might be more skeptical of it to help them have peace of mind of it works, it’s safe, and it’s highly effective. And my favorite part of at least DMI therapy,
where I don’t get that as much with TheraSuit because the equipment that I need, but with DMI therapy, I can be like, go do this thing and I can teach them, I can take a video and then send it home with them. What is the research like with MNRI? I’m not familiar with that, Megan.
Megan Williams (14:20)
Yeah, so there’s a lot of research out there. You can access a lot of the research articles that have been published in peer-reviewed on the MNRI website, and we can link to that in the notes. But yes, of course there are people that are…
Franchesca Cox (14:22)
Okay.
Megan Williams (14:36)
looking at the research and saying that there are lots of limitations. A lot of people like to find the holes in the research and say that there are biases and things like that. But if you look at the statistical information, and I get very tired trying to read the research, especially when you start throwing the Greek alphabet.
in there I just my eyes cross and then I get very tired all of a sudden but I find that if you can look at what MNRI is finding with neuroplastic principles that
MNRI providers are able to create these new pathways through applying adequate, appropriate, and very specific sensory information to the body because the brain will process it and send a very specific motor response. And with these reflexes, if the sensory pathways are not
clear to go back to the analogy or the imagery from earlier, if these pathways are bumpy or they’re obstructed and we need to create completely new pathways, neuroplasticity is proof that we can by going back and revisiting these reflexes that we’re all born with. you know, thank goodness neuroplasticity exists because
no matter what age we are, we’re able to go back in and remind the brain and the body of these reflexes and, getting flack on the research, I think is, is universal in every therapy modality or every, everything. But yeah, whenever you look at the actual science-y side of what MNRI is doing with these reflexes, it’s…
Franchesca Cox (16:14)
for sure.
Megan Williams (16:26)
It’s beautiful to know that this neuroplasticity principle is available and that we’re able to have hope that we can help children and adults have a quality of life because of the therapy that we’re able to provide.
Franchesca Cox (16:47)
Absolutely.
Megan Williams (16:49)
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Megan Williams (18:00)
So that kind of is a good segue into kind of how we look at neuroplasticity as a phenomenon that really guides how we pick and choose what type of therapy modalities we want to use with the child that comes in to see us. So when we implement the
integrative therapy approaches. So when we’re looking at the reflexes, the exercises, the movement-based techniques to support the development and recovery of the functions of the body, it’s the scientific foundation that we
depend on for how the brain learns, adapts, and grows through this intentional repetitive input. In regards to MNRI, we talked a little bit about it, but these reflexes support, they’re the building blocks, they’re the foundation of our sensory motor system and even our emotional regulation. When we integrate these primary and primitive reflexes,
We are building this foundation from the bottom up to the roof. And some therapy approaches that don’t value or adhere to these neuroplasticity principles are doing more of a top-down. I wouldn’t want my builders to start building the roof before they had laid the foundation of my cool new pool pad.
Franchesca Cox (19:27)
Yeah.
Megan Williams (19:27)
I would want them to focus on the foundation and then build up with the walls, the windows, and then the roof.
Franchesca Cox (19:32)
Absolutely.
I know
we’ll probably do an episode on just primitive reflexes in the future, but just for anyone that doesn’t know what they are, can you give like a really brief description, explanation of what those are?
Megan Williams (19:43)
first clip.
Sure, so a reflex is basically a response. So we have some kind of sensory information. It could be I see something in my peripheral vision or I look down and I see something.
on the floor. always say, I tell my families, if I’m walking through my backyard and I see that I’m about to step on something that’s long and tubular and black, I need a pause response for my brain to figure out very quickly.
is this something that is potentially dangerous? I’m very afraid of snakes and in Texas, you know, they’re everywhere. But before my brain even
realizes what it is. I’ve already, my reflex system has taken in that visual information and is telling my brain, your husband forgot to put away the gardening hose. That’s not a snake. You’re fine. And it’s happened so quickly before my thinking part of my brain even realizes it because I take in the sensory information, it goes to my brain and my brain sends a message to my muscles.
Now had that have been a very dangerous situation and maybe that was some type of snake just laid across in the grass, my body would have responded by maybe jumping back or turning really quickly and hightailing it to our back door.
and I wouldn’t even know why, but my body was just doing it. So that is in essence an example of a reflex that’s strongly tied to our fight or flight system, but then we also have reflexes of, you know, if something good smells, like at Christmas time we have cookies in the kitchen and my nose smells that really good smell of the cookies, and so I am motivated
to move towards that really yummy smell and figure out what that is. So that’s like a pleasurable kind of reflex. Even our heartbeat and our eyes blinking, they’re all reflexes and they are what we have starting in utero and we use them for the birthing process. We have these reflexes all the way till we take our last breath and they’re super important.
important and yeah, I could talk about it for sure all day.
Franchesca Cox (22:05)
Yes, that is, yeah,
yeah, and we’ll definitely get into them more for sure. That was super helpful for anyone that’s new to the primitive reflexes and reflexes in general. Thank you for that.
Megan Williams (22:17)
Yeah. So in regards to the therapy modalities that you provide, where does neuroplasticity, and we talked about it a little bit earlier, but tell me a little bit more about the approaches that you use and where you see neuroplasticity kind of show up.
Franchesca Cox (22:36)
Sure. I mentioned earlier, the foundation, one of the foundations for DMI is neuroplasticity. There are a few others, but I tell families that’s the foundation for everything that I do in the clinic. The child is not going to build confidence in their own body unless they have opportunity to do so. And like we said earlier, a couple of times a week usually is just not enough. So that’s why, or if even if let’s
we can only get in the clinic once a week or twice a week, but we can do it consistently. So DMI is the foundation I would say is neuroplasticity and the same for TheraSuit. Those are the two biggest modalities that I use in the clinic and I see it in both ways or in both of them.
DMI, we are exposing the child to the most gravity with the least amount of support in the safest way possible. And so with the children that we both see, we a lot of times these children are afraid of gravity. Their response to gravity is those reflexes you were talking about. But then there’s also just a lot of fear. There’s a lot of fear of certain planes, certain
movements for sure and those reflexes will take over by giving them that consistency and that foundation of doing it again and again and again. So with DMI we tell everybody to do an exercise in their home program five times. There are some more difficult ones that I really want the children to work on and sometimes it’s three times. But if you do this one exercise three times every day and if you don’t, there’s certain ones that we just know are, they kind of hit
two birds with one stone, right? Or they hit more than two.
Megan Williams (24:06)
Mm-hmm.
Franchesca Cox (24:07)
So we’ll give them that one exercise and I always tell the patients like which ones are the most important ones if we can’t get to everything. And I notice more in those few exercises, maybe 10, 20 minutes a day, even if we’re breaking it up like five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night or whatnot, we’re going to see more progress than like I said, not really being consistent. Consistency is the key part of neuroplasticity, being able to work. With TheraSuit
It’s a little bit different. Like I said, I need the equipment, but I still see it so much when I can see that patient on a consistent basis, whether it’s every week for two hours at a time or for an intensive. We see these children being able to build.
These new neural pathways by being able to do it again and again and again and I might adapt it in a different way So that’s what I love about the spider cage is I can give more or less support and it’s not Harder for me as a therapist to do so even if the child is bigger Because I can adapt with those bungees going higher, but we’re gonna be able to do like if we do trunk extension and Tall kneeling or something I can adapt it a little bit higher But we can still work on that trunk extension that functional extension that maybe they’re they just don’t have a lot of
control
with. So that’s one example with the TheraSuit. So the TheraSuit, we’ll get more into it, but another piece to it is just wearing the actual suit while we do exercises and being able to wear that suit gives them tactile and proprioceptive cues to feel where their muscles are. It’s almost like wearing the muscles on the outside of their body. And when I use the suit, I like to use it in an intensive where they’re going to wear it every day for maybe 30 minutes.
minutes at a time or an hour, whatever they can tolerate. And they get that proprioceptive input again and again and again. And then they learn to correct their own posture with those cues. so little by little, I usually kind of ramp up and then I ramp down. So I start to in the beginning with a little bit of input because it is a lot of information for their body and they can fatigue easier. And then toward the middle of the intensive, we’re going to be as maybe
with the most input as possible. And then I’m gonna start to ramp down to see if they’re correcting their posture. Like if we’re working on that trunk extension or maybe hip flexion or whatnot, I’m gonna start to ramp down my input in the suit and see if they can correct that posture. And so that’s when I know when I see that progress happening toward the end of the intensive, I know that neuroplasticity has done its work. The child is learning. It’s just really, really cool. Really cool to watch.
Megan Williams (26:36)
I love that you’re able to see that neuroplasticity factor of giving them specific and very calculated amount of sensory input so you know that you’re not going to just do the same thing every day. You’re taking into account like what does the brain need? They need this adequate and specific amount and it’s not going to be just a blanket of every child gets
this amount of time with the TheraSuit and yeah.
Franchesca Cox (27:05)
yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Megan Williams (27:08)
Yeah, so do you have any specific patients or scenarios that come to mind where you really feel like you were able to see neuroplasticity in its true form to help a kiddo?
Franchesca Cox (27:20)
I see it to some degree every single time I’m in an intensive. Of course, sometimes we’re getting a child right after they’re hospitalized or right before they have to go into surgery or something like that. And so it always depends on where they’re at. But I do see it at some degree with all the kids in an intensive. But there is definitely some stories that stick out and there’s two that I’ll tell you about. One.
was the daughter of a pediatrician. And so that should already tell you something that she’s tried everything traditional that, you know, the traditional route would have her go. She worked for a big hospital in the area and she was just ready to try whatever worked. And I cannot remember how she came across DMI. It was probably through social media. That’s how most not through my social media, but through social media in general. And she came in, the daughter was super,
Megan Williams (27:52)
Yeah.
Franchesca Cox (28:12)
afraid of walking. mean she was just really she was afraid of being upright. She would go to her toes and would not plant her heels and it was more fear-based than it was
neuromuscular going on. There definitely wasn’t a drop foot or anything like that. It was just pure fear. And she would extend backwards. And so this tonic extension was just dominating every movement against gravity. She had a lot of low tone. And actually, I was trying to squeeze her in. So it wasn’t actually a true like
We’re going to do Monday through Friday. It was quite of when I was transitioning away from regular visits and I was starting to go more the intensive model. And so I told her I have this like four or five days, but then the second week is going to just kind of be like it was just a few weekdays and a Saturday. I remember there was a Saturday somewhere in there. And so it wasn’t straight back to back. And so that kind of breaks up our intensive model. Right. But she came in and on day, I don’t know, eight or nine of like
Megan Williams (29:04)
Yeah.
Franchesca Cox (29:11)
this two weeks I think that we had, was at least two weeks, maybe a little bit longer. She started standing upright. She had that chin tuck. She had beautiful posture and I’m like, I don’t even know who this child is. And there was just like tears, know, like tears on all of us because she had mastered such an important goal and this mom had like long-term goals. A lot of times they want these, they need these children to walk to be able to get to the next daycare room.
or the next school, wherever their childcare is, right? And that’s almost always the goal for the parent because they don’t want them to be stuck with the infants because they’re not an infant, but they’re not safe to be put with the toddlers because they’ll get ran over. But developmentally, they’re ready to be with toddlers. And so these parents are wanting this normal, everyday…
Megan Williams (29:42)
Yeah.
Franchesca Cox (29:58)
experience for their children. And so that was that that was one of the reasons it was such a big deal for her. And so it was very exciting. She started walking by the end of the intensive and that almost never happens. We’d almost never meet our big goal at the end of our first intensive. And so I want to underline that. But that is how powerful neuroplasticity can work. She was she came at just the right time. So it was almost like the stars aligned for this child.
Megan Williams (30:16)
Yeah.
Franchesca Cox (30:26)
She ended up continuing to come for regular sessions for months, but it was more for like balance and strengthening. But she figured out the coordination part, the motor planning and the confidence to just walk. And so it was just amazing. The other patient that I had, she had really low tone and she was very floppy baby, but, and also just…
very, very unsure. I didn’t really know what her potential was because it was a new patient, new circumstances. She was a lot younger. And so she was mostly just, I don’t even think she rolled. She really wasn’t mobile at all. But by day two, she was sitting up like for 10 seconds. And it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Thera Happy. It was neuroplasticity
And it’s just the giving the child the opportunity to work against that gravity with the right facilitation. And it was just so exciting. And so the parents were just so excited. They went home and they went and did the exercises and I taught them how to, you know, streamline these exercises into their routine so that you don’t have to find extra time in your day. And now she’s like sitting independently and she’s come back for several intensives. But yeah, that was
another one that just you saw that neuroplasticity just ticking and like so many things start to light up in this child when they can sit up there. It’s like they’re in a whole new planet because they don’t, you know, if you think about what you see from a sensory standpoint, laying on your back or being held by somebody, it’s not the same as sitting up or standing up. And so I think that’s another piece that maybe even caregivers don’t understand. You know, they know it’s important.
Megan Williams (31:56)
Mm-hmm.
Franchesca Cox (32:10)
But from a sensory standpoint, to being able to access your world from a vertical standpoint versus a horizontal. just, it’s been super exciting.
Franchesca Cox (32:20)
We’re so glad you joined us for Little Brain’s Big Steps podcast. Please remember information provided on this podcast, whether from the hosts, sponsors, or guests is for informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your child’s physician and therapist before making any changes to their medical care.
Franchesca Cox (32:39)
We hope this episode provided valuable insights and support for your journey. If you know a parent who could benefit from this episode, share it with them today. Be sure to visit our podcast website for show notes and additional resources. Until next time, take care and keep making those big steps forward.
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