22 Mar 😬Been told that your child with Autism will grow out of their toe walking as they get older 🥴Concerned that your child’s foot bones are looking more deformed and painful over time due to their toe walking
A Study in 2019 which looked at the trends and treatment patterns of autism and toe walking in the period between 2005 and 2016, have shown that the prevalence of toe walking in Children with Autism is 9% compared to less than 0.5% in children without Autism. Unfortunately, children with Autism are not often offered serial casting as a treatment option to correct persistent toe walking. Instead surgical intervention is offered to children with Autism at almost 3 times the rate of that in children with persistent toe-walking and no Autism. The same study found surgical correction outcomes for patients with Autism is lower than those seen for patients without Autism, concluding that it is important to counsel families as to how the underlying neurological condition of Autism may lessen the rate of treatment success.
Fortunately, here at My Favourite Physio, our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists see many children with Autism and have successfully been treating persistent toe walking with serial casting with great success. Serial casting involves correcting the foot posture while stretching the calf muscles to regain the ankle full range of motion, a process that can take 6-8 weeks at minimum. The key to maintaining calf muscle length and to prevent relapse into toe walking after a course of serial casting, is having a 8 week block of Paediatric Physiotherapy to retrain the child’s walking pattern.
If you are concerned that your child with Autism is persisting in toe walking, reach out to My Favourite Physio on (02) 9790 4233 or DM us @myfavouritephysio to speak to one of our Expert Paediatric Physiotherapists today! Find out if Serial Casting and Physiotherapy can help correct your child’s toe walking.Â
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