One of the biggest challenges we face in supporting our children’s development is understanding how sensory feedback from movement builds the brain. Every stage of movement—rolling, crawling, sitting, standing—plays a critical role in laying the foundation for lifelong motor, sensory, and cognitive skills. Skipping a step means skipping the integration that comes with it.

As parents, therapists, and advocates for our children, we often hear about strengthening weak areas or focusing on isolated skills. But here’s the reality: development doesn’t happen in pieces. Development happens through integration. If we try to build skills on top of a foundation that hasn’t been fully laid, we create compensation patterns instead of real progress.

In addition, there is a commonly accepted practice of looking at development through a time-based lens. When the focus is on what and when a developmental “milestone” happens, we end up with all kinds of problem-based, and compensatory approaches to get out children to the next step.

Here’s the issue, what and when doesn’t matter nearly as much as How and Why. It doesn’t matter if it takes longer for our children to sit or walk independently, what matters is that they do it with integrated systems. The completion of the developmental sequence in the first years of life require sensorimotor, reflex, and visual motor integration. And, these are the foundations for everything that comes after.

So how do we approach development the right way?

Start Where You Are: The Last Perfect Step

Instead of listing what our older children struggle with—balance, coordination, reading, handwriting, impulse control—let’s shift our thinking. What was the last developmental step our child completed perfectly?

If a child never crawled in a perfect four-point pattern, that’s where we start. If they skipped creeping and went straight to walking, that tells us something. Instead of looking at isolated skills, we follow the sequence and work on building from the last perfectly completed step.

The Developmental Pathway: From Supine to Standing

Development follows a predictable sequence. Each stage lays the foundation for the next. In general terms this is the sequence of development:

1. Supine (Lying on Back) – Early movement, eye tracking, and reflex integration begin here.
2. Rolling (front to back, back to front, side to side)– Begins connecting the two sides of the body. Successful rolling to both sides indicates reflex, sensorimotor, and visual motor integration
3. Transitioning from prone (on belly) to side – to sit.
4. Crawling on belly– Organization of the more primitive areas of the brainstem to send organized information up to the cortex. The sequence is: “Inchworm,” (uppers and lowers), Homologous crawl (Same side arm and leg), Army / combat crawl (opposite arm and leg, belly on ground). This sequence requires successful cross-body coordination, setting the stage for 4Pt Creep.
5. Transitioning from side sit to quadruped (and quadruped back to sit)
6. Four-Point Creep – Hands and knees, head up and visually tracking from side to side. 4 PT Creep is a cortical activity that represents the culmination of integrated neurological function at the lower level. * Red Flag – Skipping this step or performing a “butt scoot,” or crawling with an extended leg, etc., indicates lack of integration and must be addressed. Success here is necessary for bilateral coordination and proper systems integration necessary for praxis (motor planning), and higher executive functions for learning.
7. Quadruped – Tall Kneel – 1/2 kneel – requires R/L discrimination and integration, reflex integration, along with visual-motor coordination.
8. Supported standing / Cruising – Improves balance and weight shifting, essential for walking. *Red Flag – if the child stands with knees locked into extension, the child is not developmentally ready for this task. Go back to the last stage the child completed perfectly and provide more opportunities to integrate from there.Standing Independently – Requires full integration of neurological systems.
9. Walking – A fully integrated movement pattern supported by all prior stages. *Red Flag – If the child “walks” before proper integration of previous steps, some observable things you may notice are: arms being held high, “robotic” movement of the legs without bending the knees, “waddling” quality to movement because the child does not rotate the trunk, or foot slapping because proprioception has not fully been integrated.

How to Incorporate Movement into Daily Life

We don’t need therapy sessions to support movement development. Our children’s best opportunities for learning happen in daily life.

• Make movement playful: Use obstacle courses, crawling races, and balance challenges.
• Change the environment: Encourage movement on different surfaces like grass, carpet, and stairs.
• Encourage weight-bearing: Kneeling at a low table, playing on all fours, or climbing up slides builds strength and stability.
• Integrate into play: Tossing balls while balancing, crawling to get toys, or playing in different positions helps create natural movement patterns.

Sharing This With Therapy Teams

When discussing goals with therapists, emphasize developmental sequencing instead of isolated skills.

Ask:
• How can we support full-body integration instead of compensations?
• Can therapy goals align with the next natural developmental step?
• Are we reinforcing skipped stages to create a stronger foundation?

This approach ensures that therapy is building real, lasting progress that is necessary for future development, rather than working around gaps.

Final Encouragement: Trust the Process

Building the brain takes time. It’s not about fixing weaknesses—it’s about following the path and the proper integrated functions.