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

Starfish Therapies

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Burlingame, CA
Starfish Therapies

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

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.

11/21/2025

What do you do when toes are turned in or out? As you see here we strapped for rotation but that has an extra component.

Before we did that we looked to see where the rotation was coming from. Doing a torsional profile lets you see if it is because of bony or muscular alignment. If it’s bony you do not want to strap because you will put their hips or other joints at risk.

Also check to see if it is just the foot or just the knee. It all makes a difference. Doing an analysis of how they are walking will also give you more info, are they turning in at the hip or is it just the foot? All important questions to consider.

With this little one it was clearly from the hip (her feet were almost 90 degrees lateral) and she didn’t have any bony challenges. She had feet that were pronated and not able to stabilize in neutral. We added shoes which helped some. So then we tried strapping.

This is where it gets interesting. Did you know that kids can fight against something or they can sink into it? Well they can. We did strapping to encourage internal rotation and she kept or increased her external rotation. So we switched it up and did strapping towards external rotation and this is what we got. Her body fought the pull so encouraged the internal rather than go along with the straps. This got her the most neutral yet!

Don’t just strap because of what you think j you see. She is the first kiddo I have strapped in a long time despite working with kids with in toeing and out toeing.

What questions do you have? How do you approach cases like this?

Save to refer back to!

11/16/2025

Using a ball is a great way to work on standing balance. It’s a dynamic support and you can facilitate hip hinging with knee flexion so that they learn how to play in the sagittal plane (forward and backward). It’s great for kids who lock out at their knees or don’t have a lot of bouncing play.

How do you encourage front and back play?

Share to help others find fun ideas!

11/14/2025

I keep planning to do a full post on push ups but since I can’t manage to video my child I’ll go with this!

I inherited several kids with push up goals and despite doing them on benches or knees they were not able to manage the form and elbow bend.

I finally had them just work on lowering all the way to the ground and had some more success but they quickly figured out compensations.

So I took it back to the wall. Yes we can progress it from here but they are learning the form and how to lower. They are able to keep their core and hips mostly stable while bending and extending their elbows.

They are getting a chance to learn the motor pattern and how to coordinate the stability and mobility before we make it even harder by adding in more gravity.

A simple hack but one I’m using (and I’ve been doing it with them and can feel a difference!)

Save to refer back to for your next kid who is doing push ups!

10/29/2025

Don’t miss out on this class! I had the pleasure of learning from Julie Perfect years ago and am excited to revisit gait again!

The information in this class will support your evaluation, treatment, and clinical reasoning skills!

Who is going to join me? Comment GAIT for a link to the class.

Take your pediatric therapy skills to the next level!

Join us for Pediatric Standing & Early Gait: Developmental Continuums & Treatment Applications 2025—a dynamic course designed to help you promote physiologically sound, functional standing and gait from infancy through adolescence.

10/28/2025

Day 27 - Sitting balance

What if your kid is working on sitting but is still wobbly? How do you let them be unstable but able to work on their balance reactions? These are some ways I’ve had fun with it!

Clearly they still need to be supervised but these items (and the higher water) provide bumpers for them to slow their fall down or use a side to help get back to midline. This lets them have the practice they need.

It is so important for kids to be off balance so they can learn how to regain balance and even manage midline. The practice helps them refine their movements until they can sit with stability. The other nice thing is that it gets them used to shifting their weight and adjusting their pelvis so that they don’t become professional sitters. They are building the foundation they need for transitions!

Save this to share with families ways to work on sitting balance. And follow along during for more info and ideas!

10/26/2025

Day 25 - Climbing

I love climbing. It is a skill that can start very early even if it is just going from the ground onto your lap. Why do I love it? It works the whole body. It encourages coordination of the arms and legs and the left and right sides. It requires core stabilization and problem solving. And the skill can grow with them!

And yes it is risky play but allowing risky play early allows you to help them learn their bodies boundaries so they know when their body feels safe. Safety awareness is a skill that needs to be developed!

Tag us with your favorite climbing pictures! And watch out because Godzilla is on the loose!

Follow us for more ideas and info during

10/24/2025

Day 23 - Forward weight shift is hard for a lot of the kids I work with.

You may wonder why, well because they have to trust their calves and gluts and back to keep them from falling forward. So their body thinks, easy, I’ll just keep my weight back.

Kids are also great at compensating so they will do things like bend forward but move their hips back so they aren’t shifting their weight, or they will lift a leg in the back to increase their base of support or adjust their center of gravity.

They benefit from working on eccentric control which can be done many ways. What are your favorite ways?

Share if you agree! And follow along for more ideas and info during

10/23/2025

Day 22 - 3 easy ways to prevent torticollis

1. Tummy time on day 1! Everything counts, even skin to skin on your chest. This get them off the back of their head and helps stop flat spots from developing which will impact torticollis.

2. Switch their direction when you put them to sleep. So if their head is at one end of the crib one time, put it at the other end the next time. This encourages them to be engaged by their environment from all sides.

3. Switch what arm you hold them in. Some things you can only do with your dominant hand, but all others use your non dominant!

Babies don’t have head control early on so they will stay to one side because they can’t maintain midline. By switching up their position they have the opportunity to look at things from the right and the left to encourage equal neck turning!

I love talking torticollis! Give me a 🙋‍♀️if you want me to do some videos!

Follow along for more great info and ideas during

10/20/2025

Day 19 - As your little one starts getting stronger and doing well with tummy time you want to start to have toys of various heights or on the floor and up a little higher.

Why? Because this helps to bring their attention up and encourage pushing up onto extended arms as well as getting onto hands and knees.

Make the environment varied so that everything isn’t right where they can grab it. It will encourage them to try for those next skills! Elevating toys is one of my favorite tips that’s fairly easy to do!

Follow along during for more ideas!

10/19/2025

Day 18 - Kicking

We often get families who ask for help with kicking for swimming. The challenge is they need to be able to keep their legs straight while extending at the hip.

As a parent I see my child wanting to bend their knees all the time. So practicing this skill for swimming is great.

As this improves adding in core stabilization such as a plank with leg lifts works on the total skill more.

What are your ways to work on kicking for swimming?

Save for later to refer back to and don’t forget to follow for more ideas!

10/17/2025

Day 17 - We all have those kids that have trouble with anterior weight shift.

Here is a fun way to let them grade it. Start on the downside of a balance board and have them squat or reach forward. As they gain confidence you can move them more forward. This gives them some control of the movement and the balance board gels to make it smooth.

Share if you like this idea! And follow along for more content during

10/13/2025

Day 12 - (sorry I missed day 11)

This is one of my favorite series of videos because they happen back to back and show motor learning.

When kids are face with a new task they may have no idea how to do it. We can guide them and show them. Based on how they learn best is the ideal way but sometimes you don’t know how that is until you start.

In the first video he has no idea what to do with stairs, the second I take him through it, and the third he does it.

This is very simplified and many of the kids we work with need more than just this. But also some just need to practice with trial and error because every attempt their brain and body learns something.

I love watching motor learning happen with kids of all ages and I love trying to figure out how to support it. Do they need to be walked through it, do they need verbal cueing, do they need visual cues, do they need the task broken down? Or do they need some combination of all of these? That is the magic that we get to help create!

Share to help others see the magic! And continue to follow along during

Address

1541 Old Bayshore Highway
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

Website

http://www.starfishtherapies.com/

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