Rolling over, sitting up crawling and walking was all delayed. Levi didn't crawl much before he took off walking. But his walking has that slightly noticeable gait, with one foot slightly turned in and sort of dragging along. I've seen that in other Asperger children and also in children with just the ADHD diagnosis. Sometimes it’s worse than others.
While going through patterning with my son, we learned that a child must crawl before they walk. Crawling stimulates coordination in the brain somehow. The theory back then was that if a child started walking before they crawled there was a greater chance of them having learning disabilities. Thus the thinking that getting the older child to do crawling exercises will stimulate the brain into more normalcies. We didn't have much success with our 6 months of daily crawling, when doing the Miriam Bender tonic reflex exercises. But I've heard of it making a difference with some severely mentally retarded children, or those who were brain damaged from an accident.
One of the questions Doctors ask me over and over during evaluations of the children was when did they start sitting up, crawling and walking
. I used to wonder why the "when" was important and what connection it had to "now". But I believe now that there is a definite connection to the age of doing some of those first things and developmental disabilities (PDD).
When My now 20 yr old, was a toddler, she qualified for special services because of her birth parents disabilities. The therapist, came to our home weekly for her physical therapy. A fun time for everyone! As she got older, she qualified for the center's preschool classes. Then her sister came along and she also qualified for P.T. Again the therapist started coming to our home. While she was working with the second child, the third one, was born. One day the therapist picked up the new baby sister when she was two weeks old and said, "Oh my, she has GOOD muscle tone. She won't have the same problems her two sister have." She was right! I was amazed that at two weeks old she could predict the baby's future. When my son was little, doctors didn't think you could diagnose ADHD until they were in school and Aspergers hadn't been heard of yet. We've come a long ways!
My son fought eating, sleeping, rolling over, sitting up, crawling and walking. Anything we wanted him to do he was determined not to. I could see the ODD way back then! Too much pressure to do anything and he would shut down, likewise, with my girls. It was like even as a baby his brain was so stimulated that any stimulation we'd try to force on him was met with resistance. When I'd point these things out to the doctor back then, he would chuckle and say, "He'll out grow it!" He didn't!
How straight are your feet?
