Recently we sponsored the Buddy Walk to raise Down Syndrome awareness, and that made us think that it was time to make a blog post to let everyone know how we here at Cutting Edge Pediatric Therapy can help your children.
As you know, children with Down Syndrome face some special challenges. Here are a few of the challenges we see:
1. Reaching milestones
First of all, children with Down Syndrome tend to reach their developmental milestones a little later. We can definitely do things to help promote reaching those motor milestones a little quicker.
2. Home tasks
Second of all, children who have Down Syndrome tend to have low muscle tone, which affects functioning in the home and school environment with regard to gross and fine motor control.
We typically see children having a hard time putting on their clothes, buttoning buttons, doing up zippers, etc. Children also might have trouble with having the balance to put their pants on, or to be able to sit on the potty. There are definitely things we can do to help all of those skills.
3. School tasks
In school, children have a harder time with their handwriting, cutting, and manipulating objects. We work with all of these skills.
4. Eating
Children with low muscle tone often have trouble feeding skills in the home and in the school environment. They tend to have a hard time chewing their food and actually getting it down, so we do activities that help promote jaw strength and mouth strength.
We can help with all of these challenges. In Katy we have occupational therapists and physical therapists who help the children with gross and fine motor control and stability. In Allen, Texas, we also have occupational therapists who are trained to help kids with these skills. If you know someone who has a child with special needs, please let them know we can help them with these challenges.
