Starfish Therapies

Starfish Therapies Starfish Therapies is a pediatric therapy company that is committed to making a difference for children one child at a time. Instagram: starfishtherapies

We provide physical therapy for children ages 0-22. We work with kids with torticollis, developmental delay, orthopedic injuries, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism, post-operative, and many others. We also have many fitness programs for kids starting at newborn and covering all of their growth and development. We additionally see kids in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Please contact us to find out our availability in those locations.

08/28/2026

“The magic moment when a motor strategy CARRIES OVER to level ground!” 👇

When retraining lateral balance, kids often cheat a weight shift by leaning their upper body over their stance leg. To break that habit, we start with task constraints—and then test if the brain can execute the new strategy on level ground!

Watch the progression:
1️⃣ The Constraint Phase (Wedge & Mat Wall): Standing on an incline wedge next to a foam wall forces him to translate his hip sideways to make contact (“hip... touch... away!”) instead of dumping his upper torso.
2️⃣ The Tactile Anchor: The ball squeezed between his knees prevents adductor collapse and keeps his base neutral.
3️⃣ The Level-Ground Carryover: On flat ground, without the wall to guide him, his nervous system STILL initiates the movement from the hip before he shoots!

That’s true motor learning: using structured constraints to build isolated gluteus medius control, then immediately taking it off the wedge to build real-world stability!

👉 Want more dynamic pelvic stability progressions for your clinic? Access our full treatment database inside Starfish Circles! Link in bio. 🌟

08/19/2026

“Progressing single-leg stance: From stable bases to dynamic, goal-directed balance!”👇

When working on single-leg stability with a 6-year-old who has left hemiplegia, simply asking them to “stand on one foot” often leads to quick fatigue or avoidance. But when you gamify the target and systematically increase surface instability, the motor system responds dynamically! (And this can be used for all kids working on single leg balance)

Watch how we structure and progress this single-leg challenge:
1️⃣ The Goal-Directed Target: The therapist holds a coin in the piggy bank slot. Instead of an abstract balance command, he has a clear, concrete mission: lift his foot and tap the coin in!
2️⃣ Systematic Surface Progression: We started on a more stable surface (flat AP balance board) and progressed to the blue balance disc, forcing his stance leg and hip stabilizers to continuously micro-adjust under dynamic load.
3️⃣ Targeted Return Placement: We placed an orange beam behind/beside the pod so he has a specific, defined spot to return his foot to after every tap—preventing him from passively dropping his leg out wide to catch a fall.

It turns isolated balance work into an engaging, high-stepping motor planning task that builds real-world stance stability for stairs, sports, and playground play!

👉 Want more goal-directed balance progressions for pediatric hemiplegia? Access our full treatment database inside Starfish Circles! Link in bio. 🌟

07/30/2026

“Just because a child can walk reciprocally down stairs doesn’t mean they always should.” 🏃‍♂️📉👇

We spend so much time tracking stair navigation as a strict developmental timeline:
1️⃣ Step-to pattern with support
2️⃣ Reciprocal pattern with support
3️⃣ Reciprocal step-through without support

But motor development isn’t a linear, one-way street. It is context-dependent.

Watch this typically developing boy (who is almost 7) navigate two completely different staircases:
📍 Staircase A (Curved Marble Stairs⁠):
He light-touch brushes the wall with his hand and shifts into a cautious step-to pattern. Notice he isn’t gripping a rail for weight-bearing; he’s simply using a light tactile touch for spatial orientation. The steps are marble (slippery), pie-shaped (curved/varying depth), and feature a tight turning radius. His central nervous system recognizes the environmental risk and automatically chooses a wider, safer base of support.
📍 Staircase B (Straight Stairs⁠):
He powers down using a smooth, mature reciprocal step-through pattern with zero wall contact or support.

The Clinical Pearl:
A child changing their navigation strategy based on friction, slope, or geometry isn’t a “regression”—it’s smart movement processing. Safe, adaptive motor control means matching the strategy to the environment.

When evaluating a child’s gross motor skills, always ask: Are they choosing a simpler pattern because of a motor weakness, or because their sensory system is accurately calculating safety?

👉 Want to explore environmental task constraints and how to grade stair mechanics in therapy? The full clinical breakdown is live inside Starfish Circles! Link in bio to read and learn. 🌟

07/27/2026

Is your baby rolling using a healthy flexion pattern... or are they just arching their back to push over? 👶🛑👇

When babies are learning to roll from back to belly—especially babies navigating torticollis or a strong postural preference—they often look for the path of least resistance.

Instead of flexing their hips and trunk to segmentally roll over, you might notice them try to extend their hip and knee too soon. When this happens, they throw their body into a full extension pattern to fling themselves over, instead of using a functional, controlled roll.

🛠️ The Treatment Strategy: Block, Don’t Resist

To re-train this motor map, we have to keep the baby out of that full-body arch. Here is how we handle it:
1️⃣ Maximize Hip Flexion: Bring the rolling hip and knee up into deep flexion.
2️⃣ Block the Extension: As you guide them over, use your hands to provide just enough support to stop the leg from kicking out straight.
3️⃣ The Golden Rule: You don’t want to actively resist their extension. If you push against their kick, their muscles will just fire harder against you, strengthening the exact pattern you’re trying to break. Instead, you want to act as a solid, stationary wall that gently limits the extension until they choose a flexed pattern to finish the roll.
4️⃣ Wait for the Ground Contact: Keep that knee flexed and guided down until it almost makes contact with the floor. This provides the sensory anchor they need to bring the rest of their body over sequentially.
Slowing down the roll and prioritizing flexion helps the nervous system build a more balanced, symmetrical motor map that will serve them beautifully as they progress to sitting and crawling!

👉 Want to see more pediatric handling strategies for segmental rolling? I just uploaded a comprehensive biomechanical guide to rolling compensations inside Starfish Circles! Link in bio to join us and check it out! 🌟

07/04/2026

“Reach high or reach wide? Why object placement changes everything on a balance board.” 🛹🧠👇

When challenging standing balance on a surface with lateral instability, it is tempting to think a reach is just a reach. But as pediatric physical therapists, where we place the target completely alters the neurological and muscular strategy.

Watch how her trunk mechanics shift instantly based on where we place the baby doll and clothes in these clips:

📐 Target Placement 1: Overhead & Over the Shoulder

When she has to reach up and back over her shoulder to grab the doll’s clothes, it forces a lateral weight shift with same-side elongation.

The Clinical Win: This encourages her center of mass to displace beautifully toward the lateral border of the stance foot. If you are working on upright posture, symmetrical walking, or a narrowed base of support for walking and running, stance-side elongation is exactly what you want to recruit.

📐 Target Placement 2: Low & To the Side

When the target moves directly out to the side, the strategy flips. Her shoulders move laterally toward the clothes, but her hips shift in the opposite direction to counteract the weight, causing same-side trunk shortening (lateral compression).

What to notice in these clips:

This is tough, high-level motor planning work! While she clears the target beautifully, her nervous system is searching for stability—she avoids a true terminal stance and compensates by flexing at the hips to find her center of mass before she steps or sits off the board.

Is it perfect yet? No. But by systematically manipulating where you hold the toy, you can directly steer whether a child leans into a trunk cheat or unlocks true stance-side elongation. It is an exceptional start! 🚀

👉 Want the full handling guide, postural terminology cheats, and progression matrices for balance boards? I’ve broken down the entire multi-planar reaching framework inside the Starfish Circles knowledge base! Link in bio to watch the full case breakdown. 🌟

She’s moving forward... but what is her body actually doing to get there?” 🕵️‍♀️👇When a child is highly motivated to mov...
06/16/2026

She’s moving forward... but what is her body actually doing to get there?” 🕵️‍♀️👇

When a child is highly motivated to move but isn’t walking easily yet, it is incredibly easy to overlook how they are doing it. But as pediatric physical therapists, we have to play biomechanical detective.

If you look closely at this sweet girl’s alignment in the photo, you’ll see the clues:

❌ She completely locks out her left knee to find passive stability.
❌ She keeps her left pelvis rotated slightly backward to avoid deep weight-bearing.
Now, watch her walk in the video.

Because she resists shifting her weight over to that left leg, her nervous system finds a brilliant cheat:

⚠️ She overactivates her right side, using a severe lateral trunk sidebend to literally hoist and drag her lower body forward.
⚠️ Look at how compressed her right trunk gets just to advance her right leg! Because she can’t find active stability on the left, her right side is doing double duty to pull her forward.

Even her floor habits tell the same story—she prefers bottom-scooting with her weight shifted left and defaults to a left side-sit transition. When we work on sit-to-stand, instead of driving vertically through her legs, she immediately tries to bypass them by hanging on her arms.

If we don’t step in to change the environment and the task constraints now, she will lock in this asymmetric, upper-body-driven strategy for gait.

Our mission? Slow her transitions down, block the arm-hanging, guide her through that difficult right side-sit, and force her nervous system to trust her legs.

👉 Want a full, systems-based breakdown of these specific handling techniques and how to block lateral trunk cheats? I’ve mapped out the entire clinical progression checklist inside Starfish Circles! Message me to join and to join our live session on Wednesday and to watch the full case study. 🌟

06/13/2026

What happens when you take a child with a left hemiplegia and put them in a tandem stance on a dynamic bolster? You get a masterclass in how the nervous system cheats to find stability. 🧠👇

We often think of tandem stance as a way to narrow the base of support, but biologically, we naturally rely heavily on our back leg to stabilize our posture.

When you watch these two setups, notice what happens when we switch which foot is in front:

🔹 Left Foot in Front: He is stabilizing on his stronger right leg in the back. The alignment looks cleaner because his anchor is solid.
🔹 Right Foot in Front: Now, his involved left leg is forced to be the primary anchor in the back. Watch what his body does to avoid dynamically stabilizing on that left side—he immediately rotates his entire pelvis and trunk to the left, trying to find a mechanical shortcut instead of a muscular one.

We weren’t even asking him to reach here—we were just playing with dynamic stabilization in a static position (a moving surface under a stable body).

💡 Therapist Handling Tip: If you’re worried about safety or the bolster rolling too quickly, you can use your own legs to give “bumpers” to the bolster! This establishes predictable limits of stability at first, allowing the child to build confidence and find their midline before you grade up the challenge.

👉 Want the full biomechanical breakdown on how to spot and block these specific rotation strategies? I just dropped a brand new, highly detailed knowledge base article and video analysis on tandem bolster setups inside Starfish Circles! Message me to join the circle! 🌟

What’s your go-to cue when a child tries to rotate out of a true tandem challenge? Let’s talk below! 👇

04/22/2026

Proof that hard work pays off. 💪

This guy just wrapped up a PT intensive and the results speak for themselves. While we spent the two weeks focusing on the technical stuff—like weight shifting and gait mechanics—the “side effect” was him realizing he can do hard things.

There is nothing quite like the magic of an intensive to unlock a child’s ability to play. So proud of his determination!

04/16/2026

Balance is a blast! 🚀

We’re upping the ante on single-leg stance today. Stepping on a stomp rocket is a favorite for most kids, but adding the flat side of a BOSU ball turns a simple “stomp” into a high-level stability challenge.

By introducing a dynamic surface, we’re leveling up:
• Dynamic Stability: Forcing those tiny ankle muscles and the core to make constant micro-adjustments.
• Motor Planning: Coordinating a powerful weight shift while maintaining a steady midline.
• Functional Confidence: Building the skills needed for navigating uneven playgrounds and active play.

Small changes to the surface = big wins for functional movement!

03/28/2026

🧩 Decoding the “Go-Go-Go” Mover 🧩

Ever wonder why some kiddos seem to move with a “stiff” or “springy” energy, but struggle with slow, controlled transitions?

When we see a child who bunny hops, W-sits, or overuses their calves and hamstrings (concentric activity), they aren’t just being “active”—they are often seeking a specific kind of stability because they haven’t yet mastered the art of “letting go” into gravity.

🔍 What we’re seeing:
• The “Brakes” are Off: By over-engaging the back of the legs (calves/hamstrings), the body stays in a constant state of “ready to jump.” This makes it hard to shift weight forward over the feet.
• The Squat Shortcut: To avoid dorsiflexion (that deep ankle bend), the brain often chooses pronation (collapsing the arches). It’s a clever way to get low without actually lengthening those tight calf muscles!
• Wide Base over True Balance: W-sitting and bunny hopping provide a wide, locked-in base. It feels safe, but it bypasses the core and pelvic stability needed for complex movement.

💡 The Goal: Finding the “Middle Ground”
We want to move from “locking” to “loading.”

Instead of just using muscles to pull and push, we want to help the child:
1. Accept weight forward through the heels and mid-foot.
2. Lengthen the posterior chain (eccentric control) to allow for a smooth, deep squat.
3. Find the midline to move away from W-sitting and toward more dynamic transitions.

✨ Join the Circle!

Understanding these nuances is exactly what we do at Starfish Circles. We look past the “what” to find the “how,” helping your child build a foundation of movement that is fluid, balanced, and confident.

Ready to dive deeper into the movement journey of kids?

Comment MEMBER for more info!

Address

1601 Old Bayshore Highway #221
Burlingame, CA
94010

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 6:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 6:30pm
Thursday 8am - 6:30pm
Friday 8am - 6:30pm
Saturday 8am - 4pm

Telephone

+16506389142

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