Cross about the Cross-Crawl

The myth of the cross-crawl has been with us for at least 50 years now, and I for one am tired of the claims that are made about it. This belief, initially (as far as I know) promulgated by Glen Doman and Carl Delacato, a physical therapist and an educational psychologist respectively, assumes that when an older child or adult imitates the typical movement patterns of a young infant, his or her brain is in some way restructured and begins to function more effectively. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that this is anything but a myth.

Doman and Delacato put great emphasis on repetition of infantile movement patterns like those of the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex, in which head, arms, and legs all move predictably and reciprocally. The arm and leg movements of this reflex are to some extent repeated as a baby begins to crawl on the stomach and to creep on all fours; the right arm and left leg move forward together as the left arm and right leg are extended, and vice versa. In ordinary movement, this movement pattern has the great advantage of stabilizing the baby’s posture while allowing forward motion, because to move both arm and leg forward on the same side would throw weight to one side, a difficult situation for a child too young to shift weight to maintain balance.

The “cross-crawl” movement, with movement of legs and arms as described above, is an activity that older children and adults can do for themselves. As such, it has been recommended by unconventional therapists as a way to achieve better communication between brain hemispheres and to “rebuild” compromised brain functions. Now, such practitioners are suggesting that the “cross-crawl”-like movements of a trotting horse will have the same function as cross-crawling (a function which, by the way, has yet to be established on any evidentiary foundation).

Examples of these claims can be seen at http://www.hoofbeatstohealing.com/, which states that the method is “Based on the theory of cross hemispheric integration. Which is if a child didn’t crawl correctly their brain may not be mapped correctly” (punctuation sic). The method is said to be effective for the following: Reactive Attachment Disorder, visual impairment, hearing impairment, spina bifida, emotional disabilities, and other problems. In a 2006 article in Western Horseman, to be found at http://tswf.org/Happy-Trotting.pdf, the reporter tells the story of a child riding a horse with a particular gait for the first time. The instructor noticed that the child’s pupils were dilated, but rather than interpreting this as a sign of pleasure and approval, she “could tell there was something going on in his brain neurologically. The dilation meant that his brain was downloading the patterning of the horse’s gait”, the instructor later said, and she continued, “Downloading that patterning can reveal the rider’s emotional, physical and neurological issues, making it seem like the rider’s getting worse, not better.”

Having fun and good physical exercise, and learning to communicate with a large animal, are all great things for children to be doing. For children who have handicapping conditions that limit muscle strength and movement, the physical stretching associated with horseback riding can be very beneficial. But this whole business about the cross-crawl, about downloading the horse’s gait, and so on, is the purest nonsense.

An injury to a developing brain does not mean that the brain stops or gets “stuck” in its development. Uninjured parts of the nervous system continue to grow and form connections with other uninjured parts. Typical functions may appear, even though the connections that cause them are not themselves typical. Re-enacting early behavior patterns affects the brain through the sensory systems, but it does not drive the brain back through early development; the brain is no longer at that early stage, has different structures than it did, and can no longer act as it used to act. In any case, the problems listed as treatable by horseback riding would all have occurred at different points in development.

I should also point out that the reciprocal crawling pattern does not cause brain development. This is clear because although that crawl pattern is typical of human infants, and although it is “average” (statistically most common), it is not the only normal developmental pattern—that is, a pattern that leads to good later development. Many babies use this crawl pattern and develop very well. Some babies use the crawl pattern and do not develop very well. Some babies just sit around for months or scoot on their bottoms to where they want to go, and then one day stand up and walk. It’s true that when a baby’s crawl is one-sided, developmental problems are more likely than when both sides are used. However, a typical crawl does not necessarily predict good development, nor does a failure to crawl at all predict developmental problems. If crawling caused early brain development, we would see big differences between those who crawled before walking and those who did not.

Here’s an interesting further piece of evidence. In some parts of the world (for instance, traditional Bali), babies were not allowed to crawl. They were considered to have come straight from Heaven and it would be shocking to let them go on all fours like animals, so they were carried until ready to walk. Yet no unusual number of developmental problems were to be seen.

If failure to crawl doesn’t really cause problems, what are the chances that the cross-crawl movement, self- or horse-produced, can solve them? (And what would happen if someone drove a pacer, which moves the legs on the same side together?)