Page 17 - Mobility Management, April 2019

environment. And if we don’t give them that opportunity during that sponge phase, they’re going to be constantly a little bit behind.”
The visual system is essential to these different functions, and independent mobility is required to develop the visual system. Morgan explained, “If you don’t have an opportunity to touch, feel and bump into things, then you’re not going to understand ‘This is an inanimate object that will not get out of my way, and I have to go around it.’’’
When infants and toddlers are put into power chairs, they often bump into walls and other objects, and Morgan said that this is not only normal, but also essential to child development. “Sometimes I think we as clinicians expect a child that’s never moved themselves anywhere in space to start driving or using a powered wheel- chair without bumping into things or without running into anything. And that’s not something we can realistically expect,” she explained.
By correctly supporting someone from the pelvis up to the shoulders with good support in the trunk, you’ve given back control over fine motor function and the ability to interact and play — Ross Andrews
“We don’t want to stop them from having those interactions either, because we need to make them safe in doing
that, and we also need to allow them to experience that wall and feel how that stops a chair, because they have no idea. Everything’s two dimensional to someone until you have the ability to move and interact with the world. That’s when it
really sets in that it is a three-dimensional world that we live in.”
Kids Will Be Kids
Independent mobility and correct
seating and positioning help children with spina bifida to hone their cognitive development and increase their physical activity, reducing the physical side effects of immobility and poor posture. But more than that, these interventions offer emotional and psychosocial benefits that are essential to overall quality of life.
When children are not given the opportunity to explore the world around them and their place in it, they will
start to believe that they do not have
the ability to have those experiences on their own. Morgan said that independent mobility gives children with spina bifida the same confidence as their typically developing peers.
“Any child, even with no diagnosis, should be mobile in order to learn and develop,” she explained. “Learn about the world and develop their sensory systems, their visual systems, their receptive systems, start problem solving and get their confidence. Let them know that they can do things on their own and really establish their individual nature.”
If they do not have this opportunity,
children will develop learned helplessness, in which they begin to believe that they need others to do everything for them.
“They learn that they can’t do it,
and ultimately, they stop trying, or
stop trying as hard,” Morgan noted. “It becomes harder and harder and harder to get kids to do stuff for themselves when they’ve always had everything done for them, and that’s true of every type of activity.”
In addition to building the confidence that they get with power mobility, it facilitates peer interaction and gives them the ability to do similar things that their peers are doing, Morgan said. And even beyond the child, the psychosocial benefits of mobility extend to the rest of the family. “For the parent, it’s equally beneficial,” said Morgan, “because now you’re seeing your kid do the things
that you expect a child to do. They’re able to interact with other parents at the park and let their child explore and do ‘normal’ kid things.”
With early intervention in seating and mobility, children can experience independent mobility sooner, which, ultimately, allows kids to be the curious and questioning explorers that they so naturally are. m
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