Effects of vestibular stimulation on motor development of cerebral-palsied children

Twenty cerebral-palsied children ranging in age from eight to 56 months and covering most diagnostic categories were allocated to a treatment group or to a control group after having been matched into pairs. Those in the treatment group received 16 sessions of controlled vestibular stimulation over a four-week period, while the control children did not. Motor function was measured one week and 18 weeks after treatment, and the same gains were found for the control and experimental groups. These results conflict with a recent report that vestibular stimulation is an effective therapy for cerebral-palsied children.