It's our final regular season episode of 2025!

We hope you've enjoyed Season 5 of the ResearchWorks Podcast. From EACD to AACPDM, the conference video and interview series, our DMI and CME special, to the launch of the ResearchWorks Academy - 2025 has been the biggest year yet for the pod!

In 2026, we plan to bring you even more of the latest research from conferences from across the globe, with our partnerships with EACD, AACPDM and AusACPDM (now known as the OCEANIA Academy). We are working with international partners across the globe to bring you the very latest breakthroughs in research and evidence.

The ResearchWorks Academy will continue to be free and open access and soon with a premium range of micro credentialing courses from renowned lecturers, teachers, researchers and academics - providing the very latest in research and evidence in a practical format to enhance your practice.

Enjoy our look back at 2025 and we wish all of our listeners (and viewers!) happy holidays over the festive breaks and we look forward to a bigger and better 2026 ahead!

www.researchworks.academy

BMJ Paediatrics Open - Dr Olaf Kraus de Camargo

“When challenges exist, children and families may benefit from supports that are tailored to their individual strengths and support needs, irrespective of whether or not a child has one or more diagnosed condition(s).”

Strengths-based and client-centred approaches in the field of childhood disability have been proposed in healthcare for decades, but in many places in the world, our service structures and therapeutic endeavours still are directed at fixing/compensating deficits in a prescriptive way. In the field of child developmental (disability) services, we have recently seen the publication of Canadian and Australian policies and frameworks that explicitly endorse this strengths-based approach, recommending in particular the use of the F-words for Child Development first published by CanChild scientists Peter Rosenbaum and Jan Willem Gorter in 2012.

This commentary reflects on how strength-based approaches and client-centred care, developed over the last 50 years, have culminated in a paradigm shift in how we define and promote ‘health’.

https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/9/1/e003418

A shorter than usual episode about the future of the pod - 2026 and beyond. 

We will be continuing our support of the Oceania (formerly AusACPDM) conference, the EACD conference and the AACPDM conference in 2026 with in-person, on-site, live broadcasts from Australia, Europe and the Americas!

2025 has also seen the team behind the pod launch the ResearchWorks Academy - an entirely FREE online portal for clinicians and researchers, designed to be a one-stop site for all your clinical application needs. You can register today for full access.

From AI and ML driven toolsets, to reports, templates, flowcharts, decision trees, outcome measures and more - we are aiming to empower clinicians across the globe with the tools needed to implement evidence based practices. Let us know if you have any suggestions for the site and how we can continue to develop the resources available.

On demand courses will also soon launch - we are working with international partners from across the ResearchWorks network to provide the very latest information, courses and educational tools too, so stay tuned!

Visit www.researchworks.academy

In 2024, a landmark review of the School Education Act 1999 was undertaken in Western Australia. Why? Because our education laws — drafted over 25 years ago — haven’t kept pace with modern understandings of disability, inclusion, or the rights of children and families.

This review, driven by an expert panel with deep experience in education, disability, and human rights, was driven by one clear question: Does our law support every child to access and thrive in school — or are there too many barriers to access and inclusion for students with disability?

What followed was an in-depth consultation with families, clinicians, educators, and young people with lived experience, resulting in 15 recommendations that aim to remove barriers — from enrollment gatekeeping, to inconsistent support, to exclusionary discipline, replacing them with legal obligations for inclusion, voice, and access.

For allied health clinicians, this matters. Because so often, we’re working with children whose ability to engage in school is shaped by systems, not just skills. Today, we unpack what this report means — and what could change if we get this right.

Early mobility and crawling: beliefs and practices of Pediatric Physical Therapists in the United States.

Kari S Kretch Stacey C Dusing, Regina T Harbourne, Lin-Ya Hsu, Barbara A Sargent, Sandra L Willett

• PMID: 38127897
• PMCID: PMC10873088
• DOI: 10.1097/PEP.0000000000001063

Abstract

Purpose: To characterize beliefs of pediatric physical therapists (PTs) in the United States regarding the role of crawling in infant development and clinical practice.

Methods: Pediatric PTs reported their beliefs about early mobility and crawling, clinical approaches related to early mobility and crawling, and agreement with the removal of crawling from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s updated developmental milestone checklists in an online survey. Analyses examined associations between information sources and beliefs, between beliefs and clinical approaches, and between beliefs and CDC update opinions.

Results: Most participants believed that crawling was important (92%) and linked to a variety of positive developmental outcomes (71%-99%) and disagreed with its removal from the CDC checklists (79%). Beliefs were linked with clinical approaches focused on promoting crawling and discouraging other forms of mobility.

Conclusions: Further research is needed to determine whether pediatric PTs' beliefs and clinical practices are supported by evidence.

AACPDM special: Effects of Power Training combined with interval treadmill training on walking capacity versus performance in real world settings in youth with cerebral palsy.

This paper is a contender for the AACPDM’s highest abstract honour - the Gayle G Arnold Award - to be presented at The American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) Conference - the 79th Annual Meeting!

“Celebrating Resilience” October 15-18, 2025, to be held in New Orleans, LA.

Where’s the Evidence? Challenging Therapists to Stop Legitimizing Dynamic Movement Intervention and Cuevas Medek Exercises.

Paleg, Ginny PT, MPT, DScPT; Pool, Dayna PT, PhD; Hidalgo-Robles, Álvaro PT, MSc; Frumberg, David MD; Livingstone, Roslyn OT, MSc(RS); Damiano, Diane PT, PhD

Open Access!
https://journals.lww.com/pedpt/fulltext/9900/where_s_the_evidence__challenging_therapists_to.204.aspx

Dynamic Movement Intervention (DMI) and Cuevas Medek Exercises (CME) are promoted as innovative neurorehabilitation methods for children with neurological disabilities, yet both rely on outdated reflex-hierarchical models rather than contemporary motor learning principles. 

A review of the literature reveals that CME, despite 5 decades of use, is supported only by a few case reports and 2 small, biased comparative studies. DMI, introduced in 2021, has no published empirical evidence beyond a single conference abstract. Thus, both interventions remain at Sackett Level 5—no evidence.

The ethical implications are substantial. Families often pay thousands for intensive, noncovered therapies that may displace meaningful participation in education and social life. 

Therapists have a professional responsibility to avoid legitimizing unproven practices and to prioritize interventions supported by robust evidence. Pediatric rehabilitation should shift toward child-led, functional, and task-specific approaches grounded in modern motor learning science, with professional bodies and insurers withholding endorsement of non evidence-based methods.

Karina A Zapata, Rosa H Cooksey, Daralyn K Fulton, Hayley B Shelton, Chan-Hee Jo, Richard C Adams

Affiliations Expand

• PMID: 40556501
• DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.16397

Abstract

Aim: To determine the baseline pediatric reference values of the 6-minute walk test (6MWT) distance (6MWD) across spina bifida functional lesion levels, the associations between the 6MWD and the distances of the 1-minute and 2-minute walk tests, and assess the impact of social determinants on the 6MWD.

Method: This prospective cohort study collected the 6MWD of 145 ambulatory children (72 male, 73 female; mean age = 11 years 2 months [range: 6 years 0 months-17 years 11 months]) with mid-lumbar-level (n = 59), low-lumbar-level (n = 28), and sacral-level (n = 58) myelomeningocele at a pediatric hospital. Proxies of social determinants included insurance type and Area Deprivation Index (ADI). Pairwise comparisons evaluated the 6MWD according to lesion level and myelomeningocele functional classification (MMFC) group.

Results: The mean 6MWD was shorter for myelomeningocele at the mid-lumbar versus low-lumbar versus sacral lesion levels (p < 0.001), and MMFC2 versus MMFC3 versus MMFC4 (p < 0.001). The mean 1-minute and 2-minute walking distances were strongly associated with the 6MWD. Children with public insurance and a high ADI walked significantly fewer meters than children with private insurance (p = 0.023) and a low ADI (p = 0.048).

Interpretation: Children with higher anatomical functional lesion levels walked shorter distances than those with lower levels and according to MMFC group. The 1-minute and 2-minute walk tests are adequate substitutes for the 6MWT. Lower socioeconomic status affecting decreased walking capacity merits interventions to maximize opportunities for activity.

Trajectories of Fidgety Movements in Infants with and without medical complexity.

This paper is a finalist for AACPDM’s highest honour - the Gayle G Arnold award, chosen and highlighted by the scientific review committee for it’s high quality.

We look ahead at The American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) Conference - the 79th Annual Meeting!

“Celebrating Resilience” October 15-18, 2025, to be held in New Orleans, LA. 

Continuing our AACPDM 2025 Preview series!

Effect of high-frequency, low magnitude vibration on physical activity and physical function in children with cerebral palsy: a randomised controlled trial

This paper is a contender for the AACPDM’s highest abstract honour - the Gayle G Arnold Award!

There is still time to register for the conference in beautiful New Orleans - Visit https://www.aacpdm.org/events/2025 for all the details!