2026 START-Play Continuing Education Training

2026 START-Play Continuing Education Training

The Sitting Together and Reaching to Play (START-Play) intervention was developed to address longstanding limitations in traditional Early Intervention (EI) approaches (Lobo et al, 2013). Most early motor interventions have not been directly linked to learning, despite the clear association between motor activity and cognition during infancy (Lobo et al, 2013; Harbourne et al, 2018). EI Physical Therapy providers generally focused on motor milestone achievement in isolation without emphasis on the cognitive implications; START-Play directly responds to this gap (Harbourne et al, 2018, 2020). The START-Play intervention utilizes physical therapists to deliver a perceptual-motor program centered on early cognitive constructs, occurring in infants' natural environment with caregiver social support to scaffold infant skills (Harbourne et al, 2018, 2020; Koziol et al., 2023). The clinical effectiveness on motor and cognitive outcomes of START-Play has been established through a multisite randomized controlled trial (Harbourne et al, 2020). In addition, START-Play indirectly impacted cognition through motor-based problem-solving (Koziol et al., 2023). This continuing education will provide pediatric physical and occupational therapists training on the principles, theoretical models, practice examples, and adaptive strategies used with children with varying degrees of disability from motor delays to cerebral palsy.