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Rhythmic Auditory Cueing and Gait

Rhythmic Auditory Cueing and GaitRhythmic Auditory Cueing and Gait

Rhythmic auditory cueing provides a uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat or accent to offer an external cue for to influence motor execution.  Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment published a research review to analyze the effects of rhythmic auditory cueing on spatiotemporal and kinematic parameters of gait in people with cerebral palsy.  After reviewing 547 studies, nine studies involving 227 participants (108 children/119 adults) met the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis on rhythmic auditory cueing and gait.

The review indicated beneficial effects of rhythmic auditory cueing on gait performance among all included studies.  Specifically, there were beneficial effects of rhythmic auditory cueing on:

  • gait dynamic index (Hedge’s g=0.9)
  • gait velocity
  • cadence
  • stride length

The researchers concluded that there is supportive evidence for rhythmic auditory cueing to enhance gait performance and stability in people with cerebral palsy.

Reference:  Ghai, S., Ghai, I., & Effenberg, A. O. (2018). effect of rhythmic auditory cueing on gait in cerebral palsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment14, 43.

Read the full open access article here.

Rhythmic Motion is a collection of single and double motion cards to follow using your hands, feet or ribbon sticks.  Practice following directional cues, reinforce positional words (right, left, across, up, down, etc) and move to the beat.

The ebook includes single motion cards, double motion cards and motion patterns to follow.  The videos range in difficulty and are set to music.  Rhythm 2 video is set to a metronome beat (40 bpm) and music.  There are two videos that can be done in standing to practice moving to the beat.This is a wonderful group or individual activity that does not require a lot of space or equipment.  Perfect for in-class use.

These activities encourage:

  • rhythm
  • motor planning
  • crossing midline
  • bilateral coordination
  • physical activity
  • gross motor skills

The videos are in mp4 format.  They range in length from 45 seconds to 2 minutes.  You can burn a DVD for your own use to play on any DVD player. Or transfer the videos and ebook to your iPad so you can practice the motions and then follow the videos. 

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Rhythmic Auditory Cueing and Gait