Pediatric Massage: For the Child with Special Needs

Pediatric Massage: For the Child with Special Needs by Drehobl, Kathy Fleming. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780761640929.

Therapists and caregivers always are looking for new techniques for use with children with special needs. Typically, there are concerns with what are the benefits of massage, how to position the child, which strokes to start with on a child, what conditions promote massage, and what is the latest research on massage. Kathy Drehobl and Mary Fuhr address these concerns in "Pediatric Massage-Revised." They provide a holistic approach to massage for children with special needs. Massage offers many benefits to children with special needs. These include: enhancing parent/child attachment and bonding; increasing parental confidence; deepening respiration; improving blood and lymphatic circulation; enhancing awareness of body parts through visual, tactile, and proprioceptive input; reducing hypersensitivity to tactile input; increasing the quality and quantity of phonation and vocalization; enhancing gastrointestinal function; and providing general relaxation for the caregiver and child.