"Neuroplasticity For Children" by Karen Pryor,DPT

Karen Pryor, Phd, PT, DPT is an experienced physical therapist who uses a common sense approach to help children reach their milestones.  You will enjoy this straight talk.

As always the topics discussed are for educational purposes and must be discussed with your medical provider in the state, region or country you reside in before consideration.

Please Rate, Review and Subscribe to the podcast if you are encouraged and informed by what you hear so that we can continue this spirit of sharing and collaboration for the common good of our children.

Karen Pryor’s Book

Karen Pryor is a physical therapist with over 40 years of clinical experience working with children with developmental delay. "Ten Fingers, Ten Toes. Twenty Things Everyone Needs to Know. Neuroplasticity for Children," is an amazing book she wrote. 

It is directed towards neurotypical as well as kids with delayed milestones. She focuses on the need to assess what's working and what's not in the nervous system, and how to use the pliable brain connectivity during the early years to create functional movement. Her common sense and straight talking approach is easy to understand. Mica Foster, DC her talented daughter did the illustrations for the book.

I met Karen Pryor, DPT about  3-4 years ago. We took Kellan to her for a consult after I did her basic introduction into neuroplasticity course. Takeaways from that consult were:

• The importance of the sensory system in laying down tracks before motor development can start.

• The importance of the eyes learning to team and work together for three dimensional vision.

Karen practices in Nashville, TN at Health Sphere Wellness Center, LLC.  To hear more of Karen's pearls of wisdom go to the Raising Kellan Podcast on Anchor, Apple, Google or Spotify.

As always the topics discussed are for educational purposes and you must consult a medical provider in the state, region or country you reside.

Please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast if you are encouraged and informed by what you hear so that we can continue this spirit of sharing and collaboration for the common good of all our children

Transcript

Marsh Naidoo (00:00):

Welcome to this episode of Raising Kellan, the podcast to motivate, inspire, and educate parents, raising kids with special needs. I am your host, Marsh Naidoo. Today I'm joined by Karen Pryor. Karen is a physical therapist with 40 years of clinical experience. She's well known for her success in helping children reach their potential by integrating neuroplasticity, natural medicine and traditional physical therapy. She's a clinical instructor as well as a published author. Welcome to the show, Karen.

Karen Pryor (00:43):

I'm so glad to be able to talk with you, Marsh.

Marsh Naidoo (00:46):

Karen, it seems that we've known each other forever now, but I just wanna tell the listeners quickly about how we met, if that's okay with you.

Karen Pryor (00:55):

That's good.

Marsh Naidoo (00:56):

I met Karen when Kellan was about five, so that's about three years back. At this point, I felt really stuck and Karen was actually one of the first physical therapists that brought the importance of vision to my attention and that is one of the topics that we will be talking about later as the podcast moves along. Karen, what got you motivated to become a pediatric therapist?

Karen Pryor (01:25):

Well, I have this philosophy that I treat through the whole lifespan, and as a physical therapist, you help individuals achieve goals and motor skills and it also builds up to learning. And I thought to myself, I really enjoy children. They're my favorite people in the whole world. And I thought to myself, if I help a child that's two, then I can make a difference for 90 years. If I help someone that's 90 years old, I may help them change their life for two years. So I wanted to make the largest impact. Also, in addition to that, the brain is so pliable when the child is very young from birth up to seven to nine years old, that huge changes can take place. And so I was excited to develop those programs in neuroplasticity.

Marsh Naidoo (02:25):

Karen, let's delve a little into what exactly is developmental delay?

Karen Pryor (02:32):

A developmental delay is an unexpected outcome of expectation. The CDC has guidelines for when children should be able to roll over, come to sitting, pull to stand walk, et cetera. And if the child does not meet those motor skills, then they're deemed developmentally delayed. But it's in the context of motor skills.

Marsh Naidoo (03:04):

What exactly is neuroplasticity and how does that relate now to developmental delay?

Karen Pryor (03:11):

Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain and the nervous system that affects the body to change connections. The brain only learns through sensory mechanisms. That means how they feel, see, taste, touch, balance, change, stretch on the body, catching the weight on the arms or legs, things like that. When we go into the neuroplasticity avenue, we want to consider what we're doing, delivering different types of sensation to the child. If a parent or a therapist does not get expected results or they're frustrated and it seems like they're stuck in a certain level of development, which would be a developmental delay, would be behind on the milestone, then they need to check their hand placement. Where are you holding onto the child? Are you holding their whole arm? Are you holding their joint? So these are all very specific methods, but they give very clear results and they give results quickly.

Marsh Naidoo (04:25):

So let's talk about when you assessed Kellan's vision and gave us some exercises to work with and some strategies to work with. How does vision impact a child with, for example, cerebral palsy?

Karen Pryor (04:39):

Well, are you ready for this? Many times children with cerebral palsy have a change in tone. More often than not, it's spastic tone that means it's high tone, it's hard to move against gravity. The child has difficulty moving their arms and legs or their trunk or neck therapist or a parent has difficulty moving their arms and legs. There's resistance to movement and with vision, I wondered why many medical practitioners would tell us on children that I treat and other practitioners treat that they would need to have eye surgery because a muscle is too long or too short. Well, the eye muscles are like the arm and leg and truck muscles. They're skeletal muscles, they're striated fibers, which means if a child has had an insult to their brain, whether it is an omission of a part of the nervous system, or if they had a stroke or a closed hit injury or they had an oxia which they had a time that they didn't get oxygen to their brain, they can have these spastic patterns, but it doesn't just affect the body, it affects also their eye muscles.

(06:02):

And we work with visual exercises and it helps the eyes gain three dimensional vision and line up their eyes. Sometimes they will need glasses, but rarely do they need eye surgery, which is a big plus. I'm also convinced that vision is the wind in the sails and the rudder on the boat and the steering wheel in the cart that operates many reflexes because vision connects to 80 to 85% of the brain and the nervous system. So the whole central nervous system is linked directly with vision. And we use vision methods to also decrease the power of primitive reflexes, which are patterns that seem to linger in children with cerebral palsy. So when you take away the power by changing the way their visual direction is, it makes a difference and they're able to voluntarily move their arms and legs or trunk and neck and their eyes begin to line up, which help 'em also with depth perception.

Marsh Naidoo (07:10):

Karen, so what can parents do at home? Or is that something that the therapist will educate their mind in order to start engaging vision of their child?

Karen Pryor (07:21):

One thing that they can do is one thing that they already do. Have the baby look at them or the child look at them, but you want the child to carry their eyes side to side up and down and then go close to the child's face and far away. That's the three dimensional movement of the eyes. Another thing they can do is something they already do, but we add a few more exercises to it. I call it rock roll and swing. Now I'm in Nashville, of course, it's gotta sound like music, rock roll and swing. They go three different directions. They nod their head yes, in a rock, they go side to side, like they're saying no, but it's a role. And then they swing with their head side to side. So that's another thing they can do and it really helps with visual tracking and balance together. Karen,

Marsh Naidoo (08:16):

What are your thoughts about music incorporating that into your child's therapy?

Karen Pryor (08:22):

We use music a lot and some therapists use beats, just the beat and they incorporate the cerebellum. Well, that would just negate part of the emotional component in music. Music is engaged in the frontal lobe of a child because that is where they engage emotion. And it's also engaged right under the cortex in the limbic system. And if you want an easy way to remember it, I make an analogy between limbic and lyric. So the limbic system hears lyrics and if one area isn't working in the brain very well, when you combine it with music, it will reconnect to an area that is working by itself. So we use lots of music, it entertains the child as well as the parent or the therapist. And it's good to vary it up because novel activities are key. If you keep doing the same thing, you're gonna keep getting the same result. So you want to have different kinds of music to engage the child's brain so they recognize variation.

Marsh Naidoo (09:40):

About the repetition, Karen? How does that play in the repetition of the activity?

Karen Pryor (09:46):

Well, the brain remembers whatever it does the longest. If you think about if you learn to play piano when you were a child, you practiced every day or if you tried to play tennis or any activity, I call it floating down in the central nervous system. So if you think about the activity that you're doing, like learning piano, it's a two eye heads erect trunks up. You use two hands and two feet. If you can reach the pedals, you read two lines of music and you hear it. There's so many things going on with that. Well, it's not that far away from learning motor skills. So a child sitting upright playing with a toy, they're playing with two hands, they're looking at it with their eyes and they're balancing with their vestibular system. That all is incorporated with motor skills.

Marsh Naidoo (10:42):

What would be your take home message to a parent that has received a diagnosis of developmental delay?

Karen Pryor (10:51):

One thing that I would do is find a therapist that has attended one of my seminars, Neuroplasticity for Children, because they're going to know the fast track to help you accomplish goals with your child. They're also gonna be able to provide hands-on assistance to help you learn skills. If you can't find one, I wrote a book about it. It's called 10 Fingers, 10 Toes, 20 Things Everyone Needs To Know, and it's available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Book Baby. And it gives all the background, it gives some patient stories, and at the end it gives the exercises and keynotes that parents need to know about or caregivers that will help them understand what to do, when to do it, and how much,

Marsh Naidoo (11:44):

Karen, those are just nuggets of information, I think to any parent listening to our podcast today. Is there anything else further, ma'am, that you would like to let our listeners know?

Karen Pryor (11:56):

No matter what medical practitioners tell parents, caregivers, or therapists about the child, every single child has the ability to accomplish milestones. Tone can change through manual therapy by the therapist, High tone can become more normal or typical low tone in children with down syndrome or Prader Willi syndrome can be increased spastic patterns and primitive reflexes can go in the background so that children can progress. There's hope and your choice is this, work hard now for a couple of years or work hard forever?

Marsh Naidoo (12:37):

Gosh, Karen, when things ever get tough, I mean that line there keeps me going. That is the honesty that many parents need to help when it comes to development delay. So I thank you so much for those words of encouragement as well as sharing your knowledge with us today.

Karen Pryor (12:56):

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me Marsh.

Marsh Naidoo (13:00):

So guys, we have reached the end of another podcast and as always remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.