In today’s episode I welcome our favorite physical therapist, Amy Martin!  Amy was my son’s PT from the time he was about 3 months old until he was 9 when we took PT off of his IEP.  Amy has always provided me and our IEP team with wisdom on the importance of functional movement. Amy describes functional movement in terms of strength, positioning, balance, flexibility and provides lots of examples of how functional movement impacts a child’s access to school.  

Amy and I discuss how IEP teams can add motor breaks and activities into the Supplementary Aids and Services, and then she describes how PTs can train the rest of the team in implementing those breaks, giving us lots and lots of examples.  Then, she provides insight into the many benefits of movement breaks throughout the day and describes how such breaks can help to organize a child’s systems and regulate him or her.  

Of course, I can’t talk about movement without talking about behavior, and Amy has provided a lot of insight into the intersection of these two topics over the years, so I had her describe how motor breaks can help a child access their school environment with fewer behavioral issues, as well.  

Learn more about Amy here: https://empowerhouseky.com/