Many children with low muscle tone have delays in their gross motor development (e.g. rolling, sitting, walking).
Low muscle tone does not cause any of these motor difficulties. The first thing to understand is that low muscle tone is a not a condition or a diagnosis.
If you have too much muscle tone, your movements will be robotic because you're unable to relax your muscles and you have limited flexibility. Children with hypertonia have poor balance, trouble walking, difficulty reaching and grabbing objects, and sometimes they need help eating.
Hypotonia can be caused by a variety of conditions, including those that involve the central nervous system, muscle disorders, and genetic disorders. Some common causes can include but are not limited to: Down syndrome. muscular dystrophy.
Symptoms of hypotonia
On walking, the sufferers are seen to have flat feet, walking tip-toe and difficulty in walking on heels.
Infants with hypotonia have a floppy quality or “rag doll” appearance because their arms and legs hang by their sides and they have little or no head control. Other symptoms of hypotonia include problems with mobility and posture, breathing and speech difficulties, ligament and joint laxity, and poor reflexes.
Children with hypotonia have symptoms where their body resembles a rag doll. Healthcare providers might refer to your baby being “floppy” from their diagnosis. Symptoms of hypotonia include: Your baby is unable to lift their head or control neck muscles.
Hypotonia, or low muscle tone, is common in autistic children. Some studies have shown that over 50% of children with ASD experienced hypotonia. Because of its prevalence among autistic children, hypotonia often serves as an early indicator that your child may fall on the autism spectrum.
Other symptoms of hypotonia include problems with mobility and posture, breathing and speech difficulties, ligament and joint laxity, and difficulty with acquisition of gross motor skills.
Sometimes, delayed walking is caused by a foot or leg problem such as developmental hip dysplasia, rickets (softening or weakening of bones), or conditions that affect muscle tone like cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. Check with your doctor if your baby seems to limp or if the legs appear weak or uneven.
The problem with low tone kids is that their core muscles don't support them well. This can cause problems with sitting still and focusing at school, coordination problems with sports, and more.
Hypotonic CP is a form of cerebral palsy that causes hypotonia, also known as low muscle tone. It leaves your child's muscles too relaxed. And these “floppy” muscles can make everyday movements difficult as well as exhausting. This causes many kids with hypotonic CP to reach milestones (crawling, standing, etc.)
Hypotonia doesn't affect intelligence. But it may delay development of large-muscle movement and coordination (gross motor skills). In benign congenital hypotonia, results of tests on the child's muscles and brain are normal.
If you have muscle atrophy in your limbs, you may feel tingling, numbness or weakness in your arms and legs. If you have atrophied muscles in your face or throat, your facial muscles may start feeling weak and you may find it difficult to speak or swallow.
Children and babies with hypotonia often need to put in more effort to move properly, have a hard time maintaining posture and have delays in motor, feeding and verbal skills.
Hypotonia is defined as decreased muscle tone or floppiness with varying degrees of progression. It occurs in multiple neuromuscular, metabolic and genetic disorders and can be a sign of global developmental delay, that may pre-dispose to a cognitive disability (18).
Other signs of autism
not understanding social "rules", such as not talking over people. avoiding eye contact. getting too close to other people, or getting very upset if someone touches or gets too close to you. noticing small details, patterns, smells or sounds that others do not.
Horseback riding (while sitting or lying down on the horse), helps children with low muscle tone build their cores and many other muscles. According to a CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research study, riding horses teaches children to manipulate their bodies and builds muscles in many areas throughout.
Muscle tone and movement involve the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and muscles. Hypotonia may be a sign of a problem anywhere along the pathway that controls muscle movement. Causes may include: Brain damage, due to lack of oxygen before or right after birth, or problems with brain formation.
Hypotonia, also called floppy muscle syndrome, is a condition that involves the progressive loss of muscle tone over time.
Hypotonic is a type of cerebral palsy caused by damage to the cerebellum of the brain during childbirth. This brain damage can result in floppy muscles, excessive flexibility, issues with stability, and developmental delays.
One of the most frequent and noticeable symptoms of hypotonia is pronation. Also called flat feet, it occurs when the ankles roll inward. The arches disappear, forcing your child to walk on the inside part of his or her feet.