One must crawl before one may walk..
by chris

A large part of rehab so far has made me realize that recovering from a spinal cord injury is a lot like being a baby all over again. You have to rediscover your body and how it works. And sometimes how it doesn’t. Parts wake up that you’d gotten used to being asleep, and I certainly know how a baby feels when it sits in place wiggling an appendage just because he or she can. I do that a lot too. I’ve felt since much earlier in rehab that regaining the ability to walk will quite possibly even more make me feel like a baby. When my physical therapist had me get on the ground and start crawling, though, I couldn’t help but laugh.


I’ve never been one for patience. Patients, yes, I want those at some point; after appropriate training would be a good idea. Right now, though, the idea of having to wait a long time before I can walk is very frustrating. There are no certainties as to whether or not I will, in fact, ever walk again. But I try to stay hopeful as much as possible, even knowing that if I am to walk again, it is going to be a long time before it happens. I thought this would be a good time to write about the progress that I’ve made since my post about kicking people.

http://sci.chrismcculloh.com/2008/06...-one-may-walk/

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according to childhood educator Glenn Doman, a pioneer in the field of right-brain training, crawling forwards is an essential skill to master. Doman claims that crawling stimulates the brain to develop convergence of vision – and that as a result, children who skipped this phase as babies may find it difficult to learn to read and write. In addition, children who missed out on crawling may suffer from speech problems, he says – because the same part of the brain (the midbrain) controls both functions.

In cases where a child has skipped the crawling phase, or did only a limited amount of crawling as a baby, Doman recommends practicing crawling every day for six months. To get a child who knows how to walk to do this, it will probably be necessary for her parents to get down on the floor and crawl around with her! (This should not be tried until two and a half to three years of age however, as before that, children are just too enamored with the newfound freedom of walking.) It may sound a little outlandish, but Glenn Doman mothers have attested to their success in improving a child’s speech simply by getting her to practice crawling.

http://www.brillbaby.com/teach-baby/...ng-walking.php