Hi! I am the mother of a 14 month old with L3 SB named Theo. Theo is in
HKAFOs. He is able to stand and hold onto a walker. The SB clinic has
recommended keeping his hips and knees locked while we attempt to teach
him to walk. His hips are easily dislocated, but his HKAFOs seem to nicely
support him. Theo likes being upright and enjoys us kind of pushing him
forward with the walker in front of him. He does have strong quads and is
able to pull himself to his knees without his brace on. Although I have seen
him crawl on his knees, he prefers to combat crawl. The issue with walking
seems to be initiating forward movement. How do you do this with his hips
and knees locked? Any comments on getting a child up and walking with
HKAFOs would be appreciated. Theo is a big baby . . . over 30 pounds. His
large size isn't exactly a help . . . but with a 6'6" father, large genes are
part of
his make-up. We know that he is very young to be attempting this, but we are
trying to parallel typical development as much as possible.

Jean