Promoting Earlier Sitting, Crawling, & Walking in Infants with Down syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial
Once any infant learns to sit, crawl and walk, they begin to explore their environments which leads to thousands of new experiences needed to promote development in the cognitive, social, emotional, and communication domains. Infants with Down syndrome are significantly delayed in all of these areas and are also significantly delayed in learning to sit, crawl, and walk. Our view is that if we can get infants with Down syndrome to sit, crawl, and walk earlier, we will also see gains in cognitive, social, emotional, and communication development.
This study involves a series of very early physical activities implemented by parents in their homes to help promote health, leg strength & postural control which are needed for infant sitting, crawling, and walking. These activities will supplement the infant’s regular pediatric physical therapy. Researchers will train parents on how to implement the activities and will monitor the infant’s progress. Infants with Down syndrome will enter this study when they are at least 2 months of age and continue the intervention until they can walk independently.
Faculty