Girl with Rare Syndrome Practicing Balancing on One Leg

YouTube Video UChOXX1wIs4mmkvAViop6JUw_53OUsYhd0to

This is a kiddo with Charge syndrome who is practicing balancing on one leg. This skill is important for standing from the floor, dressing, and managing stairs safely, to only name a few. Balance is a skill that requires information from our visual system, vestibular system, and proprioceptive system to integrated is not fully mature until 12 years old. Kiddos with Charge Syndrome have changes in many different areas of their body. This kiddo has colobomas which affect her vision along with changes to her inner ear which affect her vestibular system. Despite these difficulties, she is walking independently on level and uneven surfaces, ascends stairs one foot on each step independently, and is nearly independent with descending steps in the same manner. She gets stronger and better with every session, but we spend a fair amount of our time working on progressing her balance skills and independence. In addition to helping her get better at functional skills, we want to try to keep things fun so that she remains engaged. During this video she is trying to tap the small block off the cups without knocking over the cups. We have used progressively smaller blocks and higher stacks, each of which make the task more challenging.