MOVE International

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Question 8:

At what age should we stop trying to teach a child to walk?

Bleck and Nagel, 1982, share the opinion with many others that walking patterns are basically set by the age of seven and that nothing will change appreciably beyond this age. They conclude that a number of children will never walk and certainly by the age of seven, those who are going to walk with or without assistive devices will have done so.

This information can be found repeatedly in medical literature. Almost everyone agrees that by the age of seven, those children who are going to learn to walk automatically will have done so; but that does not answer our question: Can we TEACH children to walk after the magic age of seven? Our studies have shown that almost all children can improve their motor skills if those skills are taught systematically. The exceptions have been those children who have degenerative motor diseases, those who are totally paralyzed, or those whose medical needs supersede the need to improve their ability to sit, stand and walk. Some of our students have become independent walkers while others need help to maintain balance. But all of them continue to improve long after seven years of age. Our original goals (weight bearing only) were far below the goals we set today. We were expecting the children to reach their peak around Level II. Almost all of them have gone far beyond those goals and we have now come to the conclusion that people will probably continue to learn as long as we continue to teach them.

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