Guiding Paths: Helping Kids with Toe Walking Get on the Typical Gait Express

Patients with low muscle tone, high muscle tone, and sensory dysfunction often develop unhealthy compensations in their movement patterns, with negative consequences on their postural control, gait, and other upright motor skills, which can result in chronic toe walking.

In this course, you’ll learn to evaluate these compensations, then address them through dynamic orthotic solutions to help patients rewrite toe walking strategies.

NOTE: This course can be combined with our Guiding Paths course on excessive pronation to create a course of 4–5 hours.

Course/learner objective:

- Identify early compensations for kids with hypermobility, sensory dysfunction, and high tone

- Recognize the impact on early movement patterns in later quality of upright gross motor skills

- Understand how to address early compensations with early intervention through therapy and orthotic solutions to improve postural control development

- Recognize red flags for toe walking in development

- Classify types of toe walking in children and design an appropriate orthotic treatment plan to help address primary deficits, create new movement patterns, and drive further development

- Be able to recommend orthotic intervention for children with Type 1 or mild toe walking

- Be able to recommend orthotic intervention for children with Type 2 or moderate toe walking

- Be able to recommend orthotic intervention for children with Type 3 or severe toe walking

Outline: (3 Hours)

- 5 min -- Intro

Part 1: Move It! (70 min)

- 30 min -- Presentation on early movement patterns, postural control, and gait

- 30 min -- Case study review and discussion

- 10 min -- Break

Part 2: Rewrite It! (90 min)

- 40 min -- Presentation and case study on the red flags of toe walking

- 5 min -- Case study

- 10 min -- Presentation on orthotic recommendations for toe walking

- 35 min -- Case study review and discussion

- 15 min -- Close / Questions and Answers