Whatever You Are Passionate About, it Needs to Include Postural Care Too

If a child can't balance, even lying on a mat, their brain is busy trying to work out where their arms and legs are. There's little attention left for the story, the music or the maths. Stiff, tight muscles (paratonia) are often a sign of exactly that.

Everyone who moves or seats a child can help, not only the physio. Changes in body shape are predictable, and left unchecked they can shorten a young person's life. So good positioning has to carry on all day and night. That means good support during mat time, not leaving a child to slump into the same shape during a break, and helping families with night-time positioning through practice and sensory bedtime stories.

The case is made by two mothers of young people with complex needs, one of them a nurse, who now train families and schools in postural care.