Working in Movement

Regimen Benefits Children with Cerebral Palsy reports on a small study that found constraint-based therapy useful for very young children with some forms of cerebral palsy. In the study, those children who received intense doses of the therapy improved useful functional movement patterns. One kid even learned to play baseball! Score another run for cortical plasticity.

The constraint-based approach was first used for people who had had strokes. By strapping down the "good" arm, it forces them to come up with some sort of strategy for functioning with the affected limb. With enough intensity, many people learn new functional patterns using portions of their anatomy that were affected by their strokes. But, as Dr. Edward Taub, a psychology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who developed the therapy for stroke patients according to the article said about the children's study, But how children make such improvements in just three weeks is still a mystery. (A good brief article on constraints and cortical plasticity was in Nature Science Update in 2001.)

Constraint-based learning doesn't have to be limited to the world of rehab. And it doesn't have to be as intensive to be effective, either. We do it all the time in movement education.