17 Nov 😳 Been told that your child with special needs requires high ankle boots to help them learn to walk 🥴Have you noticed that the high ankle boots are stopping your child from moving in and out of sitting to stand and walk

😬Parents are often told that their children with low muscle tone or Cerebral Palsy are not able to walk because their ankle are weak and unstable. So they need high ankle stiff boots to help their child learn to walk. However, choosing the best shoes for little ones depends on various factors such as their age, developmental stage, and specific needs. High ankle boots may have some advantages, but they may not always be the best choice for every child.

Here at My Favourite Physio, our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists 🙅‍♀️prefer not to recommend stiff high ankle boots for little ones with special needs for the following reasons:

1. Gross Motor Skills Milestones:
Regardless of a child’s diagnosis, every child should be achieving their gross motor skills milestones of rolling, sitting, crawling and walking. Every child should be able to transition from lying to sitting, to crawling, to pulling to stand, to walking. These transitional positions require the ankle to be flexed beyond 90 degrees, which high ankle boots 🥾 actually restrict.

2. Walking Pattern:
Natural walking pattern 🚶‍♀️requires us to heel strike, foot flat and push off with the toes for every step we take. Stiff high ankle boots restricts the ankle movements in natural walking, causing a child to march with their ankles at 90 degrees with every step.

3. Proprioception and Balance:
The ankle joint provides feedback for proprioception, which is the sense of where our body joints are in space and in relation to each other. Limiting the ankle with stiff high ankle boots will reduce the ability for a child to react to changes in their balance when walking on uneven ground. 🥴

If your child with special needs walks awkwardly while wearing high ankle boots, reach out to My Favourite Physio on 📱(02) 9790 4233 or DM us @myfavouritephysio to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists today. 🤓

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