Cerebral Palsy: How NeuroMovement® Can Help
Has your child been diagnosed with cerebral palsy?
Are you concerned about your child’s future and how you can help your child reach her or his potential?
Are looking for a revolutionary approach to cerebral palsy?
With Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement®, we focus on the brain, where the immense potential for transformation and change lies. The human brain, under the right conditions, has the enormous capacity to create new patterns and possibilities that lead to breakthrough results in physical, emotional, and cognitive performance for the child with cerebral palsy.
NeuroMovement® Is a Revolutionary, Holistic Approach to Cerebral Palsy
To be truly helpful to a child with cerebral palsy, we need to fully recognize the fundamental role that the child’s brain plays in learning and refining new skills. This is the approach of NeuroMovement® and the 9 Essentials. The brain has the ability to figure itself out and to create successful solutions to problems. Often in our work, we see the child with cerebral palsy become a brilliant learner and the seemingly miraculous begin to happen.
“Anat Baniel explains how the great principles that govern the operations of a brain built for change can be practically applied to set up a child for continuous growth. Once the child you love is on that positive growth path, every little advance can be truly exciting for them, and for you.”
~Dr. Michael Merzenich, PhD, “Father” of brain plasticity science, Author of Soft-Wired
Click here to read why Dr. Merzenich supports this Method.
How to Help a Child with Cerebral Palsy: Use NeuroMovement® for Positive Brain Change
Cerebral palsy is an injury to the brain that interferes with the spontaneous process of movement development in a child. It is easy to mistake the child’s limitations to mean that the brain itself is limited in its capacity to learn. People may believe that the current limitations define what is possible for the child in the future.
For many years, the main approach in trying to help children and adults with cerebral palsy to do better has been to focus on their muscles. Treatments include stretching the muscles when they are spastic and short, stimulating muscles when they are not working well, or implementing other direct mechanical interventions. This approach has often yielded limited results for the person with cerebral palsy.
With NeuroMovement® we use gentle movements and the 9 Essentials, which offer concrete, effective, and immediate ways to easily tap into the enormous potential of your child’s brain. We provide your child with many variations and the conditions needed to create positive brain change that will open up new possibilities.
In our 30+ years of experience working with children with cerebral palsy, we’ve observed surprising and extraordinary outcomes using this innovative approach. Current brain research validates that the “impossible” can become possible for many of these children.
Videos of Children with Cerebral Palsy
Discover the breakthrough results these children get with NeuroMovement®
Progress of Laird
a boy with severe cerebral palsy
“Laird is now reading, he’s adding numbers, he’s close to crawling and sitting, he’s feeding himself, and he’s talking a lot more. We have Anat Baniel Method to thank for all that he can do.”
Progress of Parker
a boy with cerebral palsy
“We have seen miraculous changes, from standing and cruising to his swimming ability to his ability to navigate on the computer. Everything that Parker does has improved dramatically…”
Progress of Carter
a boy with cerebral palsy
Carter learns how to balance and starts moving independently. He learns how to stand, walk, and move his body. Carter transforms from being a very withdrawn child to being happy and radiant.
What Does a Child with Cerebral Palsy Need for Optimal Learning?
As children grow and develop, they go through a long process of random movements, experimentation, and many variations, along with lots of failures. A typically developing child will experience lots of spontaneous movements, experimenting and trying many variations along the way to learning new skills.
A child with cerebral palsy needs these random and hugely varied movements and experiences in order to learn and develop.
Trying to make a child do what he “should” be doing may actually interfere with his process of development. Propping a child up to sit when he cannot do it by himself, putting him in braces or a stander, or propping him up to try and “walk” will not give him the experience of the variation of movements necessary for learning and developing new skills.
With NeuroMovement, we work with your child where she is at. We provide your child with the many variations and experiences her brain needs in order to learn and grow. As a result, movement becomes pleasurable, children want to move, their thinking and academic abilities improve, and they feel empowered and much happier.
Read the article “The Use of Ankle-Foot Orthotics (AFOs) with the Child with Cerebral Palsy.”
Testimonials From Our Parents
For over 30 years, we have seen children with cerebral palsy move beyond their limitations and reach higher levels of physical, emotional, and cognitive performance, often believed to be impossible.
Caroline R.
mother of a child with cerebral palsy
“My son, who has moderate cerebral palsy, had his first [ABM NeuroMovement] session today…and it was amazing! He sat up on his knees and elbows for the first time ever! He also sat up straight supporting himself with his hands and he even touched his feet for the first time too!”
Michelle S.
Lillian’s mom
“The Anat Baniel Method allows my daughter to continuously reach and redefine her potential: physically, cognitively, and emotionally….It is my hope that someday all special needs children and their parents will have access to this work and its benefits. This Method has not only transformed my daughter, but our entire family.”
Rick
Garrett’s dad
“My son, Garrett, is 11 years, full of life, and a special needs child with unlimited potential. His ‘medical’ label is CP. But he doesn’t let labels hold him back….What Anat has developed over the years is truly amazing and our work with her and her practitioners has been life changing. It’s not every day you meet people that can change a child’s life. Anat and her team did. Thank you!”
About Anat Baniel
A trained clinical psychologist, dancer, and close professional associate of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais for over a decade, Anat Baniel is perhaps best known today as the founder of Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement®.
She is the author of two highly acclaimed books about this transformational methodology: Move Into Life: NeuroMovement for Lifelong Vitality and Kids Beyond Limits.
Anat Baniel has experienced over 30 years of remarkable outcomes with thousands of children with special needs and adults with strokes, injuries, and other limiting conditions. It is through this experience that she developed her innovative, scientifically based approach with concrete and easy-to-use tools—the Nine Essentials—that enable children and adults to move beyond their limitations, making the seemingly impossible possible.
Anat Baniel’s work is at the forefront of the emerging brain plasticity field, helping wake up the brain to its greater potency for learning and change throughout life. Anat has trained hundreds of practitioners in this Method. She collaborates with leading neuroscientists, doctors, and educators including Dr. Michael Merzenich, Dr. Martha Herbert, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Dr. Elizabeth Torres, and others. She and her team work out of the Anat Baniel Method® Center in San Rafael, California.
