Most children, when they are learning to walk and develop their coordination skills, typically do walk on their tip-toes, or forefoot. This is a common behavior and is an expected stage of development with children.
For children who seem to continually be walking on their tip-toes, and do not seem to develop into walking using their whole foot, it can become a concern.
Sustained and prolonged walking on their tip-toes can pose difficulty with dynamic balance changes and stability, as well as allowing the Achilles tendons to shorten.
This book, “Reducing Tip-Toe Walking Behavior,” covers the following:
Introduction to Behavior
Strategies and Activities to Reduce Tip-Toe Walking Behavior
Footwear
Encourage Use of Whole Foot
Games to Develop Movement Patterns, Body Awareness, and Use of Whole Foot
Author, Judy Benz Duncan has been an Occupational Therapist for over thirty years. She has worked with children from infants to teenagers in numerous settings that included early intervention, pre-school programs, grade school, home health, developmental training centers, and sensory integration clinics.
Judy developed the foundation for designing therapeutic activities and tasks using interactive play and creative imagination to engage the children at a level they could easily relate to while working toward the achievement of their Occupational Therapy program’s functional goals and treatment plan
Judy attended the University of Florida, University of Kansas, and the University of Tennessee. She received New York State approval as a Supplemental Evaluator for OT with early intervention and pre-school students, and has helped develop and start an OT program for families and children in New York. Judy continues to stay up-to-date in the clinical field through mentoring other OT students and new graduates.
She continues to contribute to children, families and professionals everywhere through her professional writing endeavors which include writing books and manuals, managing the therapeutic website, TheraPlay4Kids.com, writing OT blogs and topic-specific articles, working on "interactive story play" book series, writing bi-weekly professional blogs for a pediatric orthopedic surgeon group, a psychiatrist, and an attorney at law. She continues to be an active mentor of new OT graduates, as well as OT students.
