Neurological and medical

Cerebral Palsy: Signs, Early Diagnosis, and Treatment

What cerebral palsy is, and the diagnostic change most families still haven't been told about — it can be identified far earlier than 12 to 24 months.

  • Expert Reviewed
  • Evidence Based
  • Patient Focused

Dr. Eva Lassey, PT, DPT reviewed the physical-therapy and motor-development content in this article. Diagnostic and medical-management information follows Novak et al. (2017) and published pediatric neurology guidance. · Last updated August 27, 2026

Cerebral palsy describes a group of permanent movement and posture disorders caused by non-progressive changes in the developing brain.2 The brain difference itself doesn't get worse over time, though its effects on the body change as a child grows. It is the most common physical disability in childhood, occurring in approximately 1 in 500 live births (US CDC surveillance estimates it closer to 1 in 345)3. Diagnosis was historically made between 12 and 24 months, but international guidelines published in 2017 established that it can be identified before six months' corrected age in specialist settings, using a combination of standardized assessments carried out by trained assessors. Treatment is multidisciplinary and directed at function and participation — what a child can do and take part in — rather than at the underlying brain difference.

Cerebral palsy is a group of permanent conditions affecting movement, posture and muscle tone, caused by a disturbance in the developing brain. It is the most common physical disability in childhood. Two things have changed in how it is handled: it can now be diagnosed reliably before 6 months' corrected age rather than at 12 to 24 months, and there is now a clear evidence base separating therapies that work from those that do not.2,4 Both matter enormously for what happens next.

Key Takeaways

  • Cerebral palsy affects movement, posture and muscle tone, caused by a non-progressive disturbance in the developing brain. The brain injury does not worsen — but its physical effects can, without management.1
  • It is the most common physical disability in childhood, affecting roughly 1 in 345 children in US surveillance data — and the rate is falling while severity is lessening.4,6
  • Diagnosis can now happen before 6 months' corrected age. Historically it was made between 12 and 24 months. If your baby is high risk, ask about General Movements Assessment and the HINE.2
  • GMFCS levels I to V describe how a child moves. Knowing your child's level makes every conversation about equipment, school and expectations clearer.3
  • The evidence separates cleanly. Active, goal-directed, task-specific interventions work. Passive ones largely do not.4,5
  • Hip surveillance is a green-light intervention and prevents painful dislocation. Ask whether your child is on a program.4
  • Sensory integration therapy is not an evidence-based intervention for cerebral palsy — a common misattribution worth knowing.

What is cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy describes a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain.1

Three things in that definition do a lot of work.

“Non-progressive” — the original brain injury does not worsen over time. But the physical effects can change as a child grows: muscles tighten, joints stiffen, and a body that fit its movement patterns at four may not at fourteen. That is why management is ongoing even though the underlying cause is static.

“Group of disorders” — cerebral palsy is not one condition. Two children with the same diagnosis can have entirely different lives.

“Developing fetal or infant brain” — the disturbance happens early, during a period of rapid brain development.

The motor disorders are often accompanied by other differences: sensation, perception, cognition, communication and behavior, alongside epilepsy and secondary musculoskeletal problems.1 Feeding, bladder control, vision and hearing may also be affected.

How common is cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy is the most common physical disability in childhood. US surveillance data puts prevalence at approximately 1 in 345 children,6 while the international clinical guideline cites 1 in 500 live births.2 Both figures are defensible — they draw on different populations and case-finding methods.

Prematurity is the single largest risk factor, though most children with cerebral palsy are born at term. Worth knowing, because it is rarely said: the systematic review of the evidence opens by noting that the rate of cerebral palsy is falling and its severity is lessening.4

The 4 types of cerebral palsy

Type is classified by the movement pattern and which part of the brain is affected.

TypeWhat it looks likeNotes
SpasticStiff muscles, tight movement, difficulty with voluntary movementThe most common type
DyskineticInvoluntary movements — writhing, twisting or abrupt — affecting coordination and often speechMovement may vary with emotion and effort
AtaxicDifficulty with balance, coordination and depth of movement; shakiness during purposeful actionThe least common type. See ataxia in children
MixedFeatures of more than one typeSpastic-dyskinetic is the most frequent combination

Type is also described by which limbs are affected — hemiplegia (one side), diplegia (legs more than arms), quadriplegia (all four limbs).

What type does not tell you is how much support a child will need. That is what GMFCS is for.

What causes cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy occurs when the developing brain is damaged or develops atypically — before birth, during birth, or in early infancy.

Before birth, which is most cases: infections during pregnancy, stroke in the fetus, restricted growth, genetic factors, and disruptions to brain development.

Around birth: complications during labor and delivery, oxygen deprivation, and most significantly premature birth, particularly before 32 weeks.

After birth: meningitis or encephalitis, traumatic head injury, near-drowning, or stroke in infancy.

Two things worth saying plainly. In many cases no single cause is identified, and that is a common outcome rather than a failure of investigation. And birth asphyxia accounts for a much smaller proportion of cases than was historically assumed — most cerebral palsy is not caused by events during delivery.

What GMFCS levels mean

The Gross Motor Function Classification System describes how a child with cerebral palsy moves — specifically their self-initiated movement, with emphasis on sitting and walking.3 It is the framework clinicians, schools and funding bodies actually use, and most parents are given a level without ever being told what it means.

LevelIn broad terms
IWalks without limitations
IIWalks with limitations — difficulty with distance, balance, uneven ground and stairs
IIIWalks using a hand-held mobility device; may use wheeled mobility for longer distances
IVSelf-mobility with limitations; may use powered mobility; usually transported or uses a wheelchair outside the home
VTransported in a manual wheelchair; limited ability to maintain head and trunk posture against gravity

Three things to know about levels. They describe what a child does, not what they could learn to do. They are relatively stable over time, which is why they are used for planning rather than as a target to beat. And they say nothing about intelligence, communication or personality — a child at level V may have no cognitive impairment at all.

Ask your child's physical therapist what level they would assign and why. It will make every subsequent conversation about equipment, school support and expectations considerably clearer.

Early signs of cerebral palsy in babies

Signs emerge and evolve before age two, which is why a single observation is rarely enough on its own.

In the first months:

  • Unusually stiff, or unusually floppy, muscle tone
  • Persistent head lag when pulled to sit, beyond the early months
  • Difficulty feeding, coughing during feeds, or poor weight gain
  • Strong preference for one side of the body
  • Fisted hands beyond four months

Later in the first year:

  • Not rolling, sitting or bearing weight at expected times
  • Using one hand consistently before 12 months — an early hand preference is a notable sign, not a sign of talent
  • Asymmetric crawling, or scooting on the bottom rather than crawling
  • Stiff, scissored, or tiptoe leg positioning

If your child has lost a skill they previously had, contact their doctor promptly. Regression is investigated differently from delay, and it points away from cerebral palsy toward other conditions.

Our page on delayed motor milestones covers how motor delay is investigated more generally, and hypotonia covers low muscle tone as a finding.

How cerebral palsy is diagnosed, and why it can now happen before 6 months

This is the most important section on this page, and it reflects a genuine change in practice.

The international clinical practice guideline states it directly: historically the diagnosis has been made between age 12 and 24 months, but now can be made before 6 months' corrected age.2

Three assessment tools make that possible. Before 5 months' corrected age, the most predictive are:

ToolWhat it isSensitivity
Prechtl General Movements AssessmentVideo assessment of spontaneous movement during the fidgety period98%
Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (HINE)A 26-item scored neurological exam, 5 to 10 minutes, usable from 2 to 24 months90%
MRI at term-equivalent ageStructural brain imaging86–89%

Used in combination with clinical history and reasoning, a trajectory of abnormal General Movements or HINE scores together with abnormal MRI is more accurate than any assessment used alone.2

Why the timing matters so much

Early diagnosis is not about labeling a baby sooner. It exists to trigger cerebral palsy-specific early intervention during the period of greatest neuroplasticity. The guideline is explicit that clinicians should understand the importance of prompt referral to diagnostic-specific early intervention to optimize infant motor and cognitive plasticity and prevent secondary complications.2

What this means for you. If your baby has known risk factors — prematurity, neonatal brain injury, difficult birth, NICU admission — ask whether General Movements Assessment and the HINE have been done. Many centers now run high-risk infant follow-up clinics specifically for this.

If you are told to wait and see how things develop, it is reasonable to ask whether early assessment tools have been considered. Watchful waiting is no longer the standard approach for high-risk infants. Where a definite diagnosis is not yet possible, a designation of high risk of cerebral palsy allows intervention to begin without waiting for certainty.

What therapies actually work for cerebral palsy?

There is an unusually good evidence map for cerebral palsy. A systematic review graded every intervention using the Evidence Alert Traffic Light System: green where high-quality evidence indicates effectiveness, red where it indicates ineffectiveness or harm, and yellow where evidence is lower level and outcomes should be measured.4,5

The pattern that emerges is the most useful thing on this page: active, goal-directed, task-specific interventions work. Passive interventions largely do not.

Green — allied health. Acceptance and commitment therapy, action observations, bimanual training, casting, constraint-induced movement therapy, environmental enrichment, fitness training, goal-directed training, hippotherapy, home programs, literacy interventions, mobility training, oral sensorimotor therapy, pressure care, Stepping Stones Triple P, strength training, task-specific training, treadmill training including partial body-weight-supported, and weight-bearing.4

Green — medical and surgical. Anticonvulsants, bisphosphonates, botulinum toxin alone or with occupational therapy or casting, diazepam, dentistry, hip surveillance, intrathecal baclofen, scoliosis correction, selective dorsal rhizotomy, and umbilical cord blood cell therapy.4

What is not supported. In the earlier iteration of the same review, 70% of the evidence was lower level (yellow) and 6%, eight outcomes of 131, was graded “do not do it” — with the recommendation that those interventions be discontinued, since alternatives exist.5 The red group is dominated by passive approaches, which is likely why they do not work: they do not provide the active, repeated, task-specific practice that drives experience-dependent change.

One correction worth naming specifically: sensory integration therapy is not an evidence-based intervention for cerebral palsy. It has support in autistic children when delivered under fidelity toward individualized goals. That evidence does not transfer to cerebral palsy, and it is a common misattribution — particularly on sites like this one, where families often arrive through sensory content.

How to use this with your team. Ask which category a proposed intervention falls into and why. A good therapist will engage with the question directly. Yellow-light interventions should be accompanied by a sensitive outcome measure, so that whether it is working can be established rather than assumed.5

Physical therapy for cerebral palsy

Physical therapy targets mobility, strength, postural control and motor skills — and the evidence points firmly toward doing the actual task rather than training underlying components and hoping they transfer.

What has support: goal-directed and task-specific training, strength training, fitness training, treadmill and partial body-weight-supported treadmill training, mobility training, weight-bearing, casting, and hippotherapy.4

What that looks like in practice: if the goal is climbing the stairs at home, therapy practices those stairs. If the goal is walking to the school gate, that is the target. Sessions should be built around goals your family actually chose.

Home programs are green-light,4 which matters — it means what happens between sessions is doing real work, not just reinforcing.

Find a pediatric physical therapist · Physical therapy for cerebral palsy in children

Occupational therapy for cerebral palsy

Occupational therapy targets participation in daily life — dressing, feeding, writing, play, school.

What has support: bimanual training (coordinated use of both hands), constraint-induced movement therapy (restraining the stronger arm to build use of the weaker one), goal-directed training, environmental enrichment, occupational therapy following botulinum toxin, and home programs.4

Adaptive equipment and assistive technology are central — specialized seating, writing aids, adapted utensils, and communication devices.

Find a pediatric occupational therapist · Occupational therapy for cerebral palsy in children

Speech and feeding support

Cerebral palsy frequently affects oral motor function, so speech-language pathology covers two distinct jobs.

Communication. Articulation work where speech is affected, and augmentative and alternative communication where it is not sufficient. Introducing AAC does not delay or replace speech — a persistent parental worry the evidence does not support.

Feeding and swallowing. Oral sensorimotor therapy is green-light,4 and swallowing safety deserves specific attention: coughing during feeds, a wet-sounding voice after swallowing, or recurrent chest infections all warrant assessment.

Find a speech-language pathologist · Speech therapy for cerebral palsy

Medications and surgery

For spasticity: botulinum toxin injections, more effective combined with occupational therapy or casting; oral medications including diazepam and baclofen; and intrathecal baclofen delivered by an implanted pump.4

Selective dorsal rhizotomy — a neurosurgical procedure cutting selected sensory nerve rootlets to reduce spasticity permanently. Green-light, with careful candidate selection.4

Orthopedic surgery for hip displacement, scoliosis correction, and contracture management. Anticonvulsants where epilepsy is present, and bisphosphonates for bone density.4

On stem cell therapy. Umbilical cord blood cell therapy appears in the green-light group,4 but this is a field with active predatory private clinics marketing unproven treatments to families at high cost. Any stem cell treatment should be discussed with your child's neurologist and, ideally, accessed through a registered clinical trial. Be skeptical of anything sold directly to parents.

Hip surveillance — ask about it

Hip surveillance is a green-light intervention,4 and it is the one most likely to be missing from a child's care.

Hip displacement is common in cerebral palsy, and risk rises with GMFCS level. Left undetected it progresses to painful dislocation requiring major reconstructive surgery. Caught early, it is manageable with far less.

Hip surveillance means scheduled hip X-rays at intervals set by GMFCS level, beginning in early childhood — not waiting for pain or a limp, because by then displacement is usually advanced.

Ask your child's team: is my child on a hip surveillance program, and when is the next X-ray due? Not every service runs one automatically, and it is a reasonable thing for a parent to chase.

Equipment and assistive technology

Equipment expands what a child can do. The framing that using a wheelchair means giving up costs children participation, independence, and energy they could spend on something better.

  • Mobility: walkers, gait trainers, manual and powered wheelchairs, standers
  • Positioning: specialized seating, sleep systems, orthotics
  • Communication: AAC devices from simple boards to eye-gaze systems
  • Daily living: adapted utensils, bathing equipment, environmental controls

A child who uses a powered wheelchair for distance and walks at home is not being inconsistent — they are allocating energy sensibly.

Living well with cerebral palsy

Pain is under-recognized and worth raising. Musculoskeletal pain is common in cerebral palsy and frequently goes unreported, particularly in children with communication differences. Ask about it directly and repeatedly.

Fatigue is real. Movement costs more energy in cerebral palsy than it does otherwise. A child who manages the morning and struggles by afternoon is not losing motivation.

School. Accommodations belong in an IEP or 504 plan — extra time between classes, accessible routes, adapted PE rather than exclusion, typing instead of handwriting, a second set of books, seating and positioning. Our resources for teachers include material to hand over.

Transition to adult services is a known weak point in most health systems. Start asking about it well before it is needed.

And for parents: your capacity is part of what is available to your child. Stepping Stones Triple P, a parenting program adapted for children with disabilities, appears in the green-light group.4 Support for you is an intervention, not a distraction from one.

Questions to ask your child's team

  • What GMFCS level would you assign, and why?
  • Has General Movements Assessment or the HINE been done? (for infants)
  • Is my child on a hip surveillance program? When is the next X-ray?
  • Which of these interventions are green-light, and which are we monitoring?
  • What outcome measure are we using, and when do we review?
  • Whose goals are these — ours, or the service's?
  • Is my child in pain? How would we know?
  • What does the transition to adult services look like, and when does it start?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is cerebral palsy?

A group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, attributed to non-progressive disturbances in the developing fetal or infant brain. It is the most common physical disability in childhood, affecting roughly 1 in 345 children in US surveillance data. The motor differences are often accompanied by differences in sensation, cognition, communication and behavior, alongside epilepsy and secondary musculoskeletal problems.

When can cerebral palsy be diagnosed?

Before 6 months' corrected age. Historically diagnosis was made between 12 and 24 months, but the international clinical guideline now supports earlier identification using the Prechtl General Movements Assessment (98% sensitivity), the Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (90%), and MRI at term-equivalent age (86 to 89%). A trajectory of abnormal findings across these tools is more accurate than any one alone.

What causes cerebral palsy?

A disturbance in the developing brain before birth, during birth, or in early infancy. Prematurity is the single largest risk factor. Most cases originate before birth, and in many cases no single cause is identified. Birth asphyxia accounts for a much smaller proportion of cases than was historically assumed.

What are the 4 types of cerebral palsy?

Spastic (stiff muscles, the most common), dyskinetic (involuntary movements affecting coordination and often speech), ataxic (difficulty with balance and coordination), and mixed (features of more than one). Type is also described by which limbs are affected. Type does not tell you how much support a child will need — that is what GMFCS levels describe.

What do GMFCS levels mean?

The Gross Motor Function Classification System describes self-initiated movement across five levels. Level I walks without limitations; II walks with limitations; III uses a hand-held mobility device; IV has self-mobility with limitations and may use powered mobility; V is transported in a manual wheelchair with limited head and trunk control. Levels describe what a child does rather than what they could learn, are relatively stable over time, and say nothing about intelligence or communication.

Can cerebral palsy be cured?

No. The brain injury is permanent and non-progressive. But function can improve substantially with effective intervention, and there is now a clear evidence base separating therapies that work from those that do not.

Does cerebral palsy get worse over time?

The brain injury does not worsen — that is what non-progressive means. But its physical effects can change as a child grows, with muscles tightening, joints stiffening, and secondary complications such as hip displacement developing. That is why ongoing management, and hip surveillance in particular, matters.

What therapies work for cerebral palsy?

Active, goal-directed and task-specific interventions. Supported allied health approaches include bimanual training, constraint-induced movement therapy, goal-directed training, strength and fitness training, task-specific training, treadmill training, home programs and hippotherapy. Supported medical interventions include botulinum toxin, hip surveillance, intrathecal baclofen and selective dorsal rhizotomy. Passive interventions dominate the ineffective group.

Does sensory integration therapy help cerebral palsy?

It is not an evidence-based intervention for cerebral palsy. Sensory integration therapy has support in autistic children when delivered under fidelity toward individualized goals, but that evidence does not transfer to cerebral palsy. It is a common misattribution worth knowing about.

What is hip surveillance and does my child need it?

Scheduled hip X-rays at intervals set by GMFCS level, starting in early childhood, to detect hip displacement before it becomes painful dislocation. It is a green-light intervention with high-quality evidence behind it. Not every service runs a program automatically, so ask directly whether your child is on one and when the next X-ray is due.

Does cerebral palsy affect life expectancy?

Cerebral palsy in itself does not inherently shorten life expectancy. Associated conditions influence it — particularly respiratory function, feeding and swallowing safety, epilepsy, and the severity of motor impairment. Proactive management of nutrition, respiratory health and mobility supports longevity.

Is cerebral palsy hereditary?

Usually not. It typically arises from brain injury or atypical brain development rather than inheritance, though genetic factors contribute in some cases and this is an active research area. Most families have no other affected members.

Does cerebral palsy affect intelligence?

Not necessarily. Some children have intellectual disability and many do not. GMFCS level in particular says nothing about cognition — a child at level V may have no cognitive impairment at all. Communication difficulty is frequently mistaken for cognitive difficulty, which is one reason AAC access matters so much.

Find a therapist who treats cerebral palsy

364 practices in the DrSensory directory name cerebral palsy among the conditions they treat — 272 PT, 60 OT, 32 SLP — across 50 states. They are grouped by state below.

Alabama7 practices
Alaska6 practices
Arizona14 practices
Arkansas2 practices
California23 practices
Colorado8 practices
Connecticut3 practices
Delaware4 practices
District of Columbia4 practices
Florida19 practices
Georgia7 practices
Hawaii4 practices
Idaho4 practices
Illinois16 practices
Indiana5 practices
Iowa1 practice
Kansas2 practices
Kentucky5 practices
Louisiana6 practices
Maine5 practices
Maryland2 practices
Massachusetts6 practices
Michigan6 practices
Minnesota9 practices
Mississippi1 practice
Missouri6 practices
Montana1 practice
Nebraska5 practices
Nevada14 practices
New Hampshire2 practices
New Jersey8 practices
New Mexico2 practices
New York12 practices
North Carolina15 practices
North Dakota1 practice
Ohio7 practices
Oklahoma5 practices
Oregon7 practices
Pennsylvania4 practices
Rhode Island2 practices
South Carolina3 practices
South Dakota4 practices
Tennessee13 practices
Texas29 practices
Utah5 practices
Vermont2 practices
Virginia9 practices
Washington7 practices
West Virginia2 practices
Wisconsin5 practices

Each practice appears here because its own listing names this among what it treats. A listing is not an endorsement or a referral, and inclusion does not mean we have verified a practice’s credentials, licensure or insurance — check those directly. Browse all physical therapy practices.

Sources

  1. Rosenbaum P, Paneth N, Leviton A, Goldstein M, Bax M, Damiano D, Dan B, Jacobsson B. A report: the definition and classification of cerebral palsy, April 2006. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology Supplement. 2007;109:8–14. PMID 17370477. — Cerebral palsy describes a group of permanent disorders of the development of movement and posture, causing activity limitation, that are attributed to non-progressive disturbances that occurred in the developing fetal or infant brain. The motor disorders are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, cognition, communication and behaviour, by epilepsy, and by secondary musculoskeletal problems.
  2. Novak I, Morgan C, Adde L, Blackman J, Boyd RN, Brunstrom-Hernandez J, et al. Early, accurate diagnosis and early intervention in cerebral palsy: advances in diagnosis and treatment. JAMA Pediatrics. 2017;171(9):897–907. PMID 28715518. — Cerebral palsy occurs in 1 in 500 live births. Historically, the diagnosis has been made between age 12 and 24 months but now can be made before 6 months' corrected age. Before 5 months' corrected age, the most predictive tools are term-age magnetic resonance imaging (86%–89% sensitivity), the Prechtl Qualitative Assessment of General Movements (98% sensitivity), and the Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (90% sensitivity). A trajectory of abnormal General Movements or HINE scores, in combination with abnormal MRI producing congruent findings, is more accurate than individual clinical assessments in isolation. Clinicians should understand the importance of prompt referral to diagnostic-specific early intervention to optimize infant motor and cognitive plasticity and prevent secondary complications.
  3. Palisano R, Rosenbaum P, Walter S, Russell D, Wood E, Galuppi B. Development and reliability of a system to classify gross motor function in children with cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. 1997;39(4):214–223. PMID 9183258. — The Gross Motor Function Classification System. See also the expanded and revised version, GMFCS-E&R, from the CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research.
  4. Novak I, Morgan C, Fahey M, Finch-Edmondson M, Galea C, Hines A, et al. State of the evidence traffic lights 2019: systematic review of interventions for preventing and treating children with cerebral palsy. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports. 2020;20(2):3. PMID 32086598. — Cerebral palsy is the most common physical disability of childhood, but the rate is falling and severity is lessening. Evidence appraised using GRADE and the Evidence Alert Traffic Light System. Effective allied health interventions include acceptance and commitment therapy, action observations, bimanual training, casting, constraint-induced movement therapy, environmental enrichment, fitness training, goal-directed training, hippotherapy, home programs, literacy interventions, mobility training, oral sensorimotor, oral sensorimotor plus electrical stimulation, pressure care, stepping stones triple P, strength training, task-specific training, treadmill training, partial body weight support treadmill training, and weight-bearing. Effective medical and surgical interventions include anti-convulsants, bisphosphonates, botulinum toxin, botulinum toxin plus occupational therapy, botulinum toxin plus casting, diazepam, dentistry, hip surveillance, intrathecal baclofen, scoliosis correction, selective dorsal rhizotomy, and umbilical cord blood cell therapy.
  5. Novak I, McIntyre S, Morgan C, Campbell L, Dark L, Morton N, et al. A systematic review of interventions for children with cerebral palsy: state of the evidence. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. 2013;55(10):885–910. PMID 23962350. — 166 articles met the inclusion criteria, 74% of them systematic reviews, across 64 discrete interventions seeking 131 outcomes. Most evidence for intervention was lower level (yellow) at 70%, while 6% — 8 of 131 — was graded “do not do it” (red stop). All yellow light interventions should be accompanied by a sensitive outcome measure to monitor progress, and red light interventions should be discontinued since alternatives exist.
  6. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data and statistics for cerebral palsy. Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. cdc.gov. — Prevalence of approximately 1 in 345 children.

Medical disclaimer. This page is for general educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It is not a substitute for evaluation by a clinician who knows your child. If your child has lost skills they previously had, contact their doctor promptly.