{"id":1557,"date":"2020-02-13T12:57:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T12:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2022-07-26T06:33:30","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T06:33:30","slug":"the-role-of-physical-therapy-for-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/the-role-of-physical-therapy-for-autism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role of Physical Therapy For Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Children with autism and other neurodevelopmental delays face several challenges in everyday life. They need the required support and treatment options to develop their deficits and lost motor skills.\u00a0<\/span><strong>Physical therapy for autism<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0are exercises that are done through the process of play. These strategies are designed to enhance strength, balance, muscle coordination, stamina, mobility, and confidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Physical exercises get the muscles, joints, and reflexes working in an organized way to create smooth motor movements. Post therapy, children with autism feel comfortable sitting on a chair, maintaining a good posture, walking without losing balance and also climbing stairs.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Physical Difficulties In Children With Autism<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<h3><strong>\u00a0Developmental Delay:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A developmental delay in children with autism is the lack of age-appropriate skills in developmental areas such as cognitive, speech and, fine and gross motor. Physical developmental delay is marked with holding up their head, difficulty in rolling over, crawling, sitting up, walking and jumping.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<h3><strong>Low Muscle Tone:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Muscle tone is essential for holding-up bodies when sitting or standing. Lack of muscle tone leads to bad posture and affect gross motor development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<h3><strong>\u00a0 Decreased Body Awareness<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Children with ASD have a lack of awareness about their body parts. They are more accident-prone.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><strong>Who Can Benefit?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A physical therapist or a physiotherapist has experience working with children having a variety of symptoms. The physical training is accomplished with innovative approaches to assist children with issues including:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poor muscle coordination\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Balance<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High\/low muscle tone<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sensory-processing troubles that result in damaging physical effects<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gait challenges (tip-toe walking)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Postural issues while sitting, standing or jumping<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Delayed motor milestones<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><strong>Role Of A Physical Therapist<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Physical therapy for autism\u00a0targets:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Basic Skills: Physical therapy helps<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0children experiencing a developmental delay to improve their gross motor skills. This helps the children to sit, roll over, stand and run.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Coordination<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Physical therapy focuses on improving the necessary muscles to improve balance and limb coordination.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Develop reciprocal-play skills:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By using various strategies, a physical therapist help children develop \u2018interacting and reacting\u2019 activities such as throwing and catching a ball.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Growing Stamina: Physical therapy<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0for autism focus on increasing the body stamina in the participants. They involve sports such as kicking, jumping and running.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Why Is Physical Intervention Necessary For Autistic Children?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By participating in physical activities, children can improve their strength and coordination. Some of the benefits they reap through physical therapy are:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Improvement in Behaviours:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Children with autism are prone to aggression when they find difficulty in expressing themselves. Physical therapy helps in decreasing maladaptive behaviours through various activities. This reduces stress and frustration in children.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Improvement In Overall Health:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Participating in physical activities help children to stay active. This also decreases the risk of health issue such as obesity.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><strong>Increase Independence:\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Exercises develop motor ability in kids with autism. They can easily accomplish activities like climbing stairs that require gross motor skills.\u00a0<\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/advantages-of-paediatric-physical-therapy-for-children-with-autism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Physical therapy for autism<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">improves strength and stamina. This can positively affect improvement in their daily activities.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For parents, the therapist also creates exercises that can be also done at home. The goal of the therapy is to build the essential physical strength for a standard living.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Children with autism and other neurodevelopmental delays face several challenges in everyday life. They need the required support and treatment options to develop their deficits and lost motor skills.\u00a0Physical therapy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[201],"tags":[11,275,111,202,258,293,294],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}