With both of my girls I made a game out of it. Since his hips are
locked he will swing through. This is what I did. I put a ball in
front of my girls and from the back helped them to lift and swing to
kick the ball. The second game was don't step on my hand. Both my
girls are M&M lovers so for every step up to 10 they got 1 M&M.

Cindy


--- In spinabifidacentral@yahoogroups.com, "jeanzbatty"
<battyfamily@c...> wrote:

> 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
>