07 Apr Case Study: Managing Difficult Behaviours In Children  with Special Needs

Case Study: Managing Difficult Behaviours In Children  with Special Needs

Are you struggling with the screaming tantrums that your child with special needs is throwing at you every time you try to get them to crawl or walk
Is your child with special needs throwing themselves down on the ground crying, banging their heads on the ground or scratching themselves whenever they don’t get their way 

Here at My Favourite Physio, our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists see many children with special needs including Global Development Delay, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Angelman Syndrome and Rare Genetic Conditions. Often the children are non verbal or delayed in their speech and language skills as well as their gross motor skills, so they are unable to communicate their wants and needs. So over time, they learn that to get their message across to their carers, crying and screaming tends to result in parents either giving them what they want or stop what they don’t want.

This was the same for Miss J, who is 2 years old and has Global Developmental Delay. She has no speech apart from screaming or crying. When we first met her, she could not crawl, stand or walk. When she was upset, she would scream throw herself into the ground and bang her head on the floor. This often resulted in bruises and bumps on her head. 

With Physiotherapy, our goals was to help her to learn to crawl, stand and walk. However, before we could do that, we first had to teach her to self calm,  stop throwing herself on the ground and harming herself. Our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists used a variety of behavioural and communication strategies to successfully retrain her behavioural so that she could actually focus and learn new tasks. It was a challenging process for Miss J, however, we are really pleased  to share that Miss J now can walk by herself and is much happier with reduced tantrums!

So if you have a child with special needs who is not yet walking and throwing tantrums, ring My Favourite Physio on (02) 9790 4233 to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists today! We love to help your child achieve their full potential today!