Neurodevelopmental Treatment Association (NTDA)  Annual Conference focused on Postural Control. 

I wanted to put up a short post about my weekend activities – I spent the last 3 days in the Neurodevelopmental Treatment Association (NTDA)  annual conference focused on postural control. Thank you NDTA for putting on an informative, inspiring, and community building conference on postural control. 

I am taking a page out of my academic training and assigning myself a reflective essay on the conference and what NDTA means to me. If interested, I invite you read further and if not, please take away that motor movement, postural control, and function is a crucial piece of the puzzle for helping children with feeding difficulty function better. Children with pediatric feeding disorders (PFD) should be looked at as a whole because how they manage their bodies will affect their how they use their mouth. 

My story

To give some personal background, my first exposure and training in pediatric feeding was in the early 1990’s. My mentors in pediatric feeding intervention were an OT and a SLP, both NDT certified. They used their NDT handling skills with children with pediatric feeding disorders to help with postural alignment and control, for trunk strength and rotation, for improved breath support, and subsequently improved oral pharyngeal function. 

To give some personal background, my first exposure and training in pediatric feeding was in the early 1990’s. My mentors in pediatric feeding intervention were an OT and a SLP, both NDT certified. They used their NDT handling skills with children with pediatric feeding disorders to help with postural alignment and control, for trunk strength and rotation, for improved breath support, and subsequently improved oral pharyngeal function. 

I fell in love with this whole body functional approach and witnessed amazing improvement in the feeding skills of these children. I obtained my pediatric NDT certification in 1996. I am still am very proud of this, especially as an SLP which I felt at the time was a stretch for me in learning.  Over my 30 years as a feeding therapist, I have become a pediatric feeding specialist, even an expert in some topics but not all. Pediatric feeding disorders are complex with a lot of moving parts and players contributing to the problem. Postural control and alignment is not my strongest area but attending the conference felt like I was coming home to my roots and has given me a renewed energy and new tools to dive back in.  

In thinking about how NDT has influenced my practice, I would say that NDT trained me to take a wholistic view of each child, to look at the whole body in relation to oral-pharyngeal and feeding skills. It has given me an understanding of the necessity of respiratory support and postural alignment for feeding and swallowing skills to function optimally as well as the tools and confidence provide intervention.

A few highlights from the conference: 

Louis Bly, PT, MA, C/NDT spoke about the hallmark of NDT which is working on posture and postural control and that this is essential for functional skills. The “Postural Control System” includes the interaction of the musculoskeletal, neural, sensory, and cognitive systems. Each of these areas needs to be evaluated and addressed when working on Postural Control.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Sandra Saavedra spoke about The Segmental Assessment of Trunk Control (SATCo) which provides a more precise tool to measure incremental levels of postural control prior to independent sitting. She instructed us on this assessment and showed the benefit of segmental assessment.

Therese McDermott, CScD, CCC-SLP, spoke about her research involving improved respiratory function, resulting in improved connected speech intelligibility related to work on postural control.

Additional presentations included:

Anticipatory postural control- Gay Girolami, PT, MS, PhD, C/NDT

Vision and posture – DeAnn Fitzgerald, OD; Kyle Ross OD, FAAO; Ana Paula M Nogueira, M.S., PT, C/NDT

Posture Relies on Perception- Kris Gellert, OTR/L, C/NDT

“Straight Up”: Fueling Function in School-based Therapy – Colleen Carey, DPT, C/NDT

Approach to Stability: Static and Dynamic Elements – Jodi A. Renard, PT, DPT, C/NDT, CBIS

I want to say thank you to NDTA for an amazing conference and learning opportunity.  Also a special shout out to the SLP’s that attended who far surpass me in skill level and inspire me to do this work!  I plan to spend the next week watching the presentations I missed (due to concurrent sessions) and reviewing the ones I found most applicable to my area.