Children with down syndrome

Children with Down Syndrome Improved in Motor Functioning and Muscle Tone Following Massage Therapy.

The purpose of this research was to prove that, massage therapy might enhance developmentfor children with Down syndrome by improving muscle tone and motor development. Even though, physical exercise is important for motor development it is not well tolerated by children with Downsyndrome. The researchers contacted two centers participating in providing early intervention services to children with disabilities. A total of 21 children (mean age, two years) were recruited and thendivided in two groups. One half was assigned to a massage therapy group and the other half to a reading/attention control group. The program lasted two months and the results were quite encouraging.Researchers believed that, if massage therapy was added to an early intervention program, it would be very helpful for young children with Down syndrome.
In this investigation, children had to gothrough a process to verify the diagnosis of Down syndrome and the level of physical or mental disability. Some children were not selected due to a physical or emotional impairment. The experimentthat was conducted and its results could have changed if some of the children, who did not stay, had stayed. The experiment was not easy, but probably it would have given a more meaningful understandingof the results if it had been done with children with more impairment. The procedure might have been more difficult, but the results would have been more accurate. It is important to recognize thatthe time spent on an experiment like this, is very meaningful. However, a result that would have been more convincing to science and the people interested would have been better.

An importantaspect of this study was that children were at all times accompanied by a team of professionals. They already knew the children. They were their teachers, their special educators, speech therapist...