Advance guard

Cerebral palsy is a permanent physical disability that affects muscle control, but early intervention can reduce later symptoms.

- Nicky Pellegrino

Cerebral palsy is not a diagnosis anyone wants for their child, but the earlier parents find out the better. It's the most common childhood physical disability - one in 500 babies is born with it but it doesn't get diagnosed until they are on average 19 months old, meaning opportunities for interventions are missed. Dr. Sian Williams of the Liggins Institute and Professor Susan Stott of Auckland University's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences are working to change that.

"There's been such a huge shift in what we know about cerebral palsy," says Williams. "We now have a better understanding of the value of neuroplasticity and that golden period of early intervention and what we can do much earlier on for a brain that is still developing that will result in much greater changes in the long run."

Doctors have traditionally taken a wait-and-see approach with cerebral palsy. They may have had their suspicions but not wanted to give bad news until there was more certainty.

"But what we hear from parents is they want to know," says Stott. "It helps them plan for the future."

Cerebral palsy is a physical disability with signs and symptoms evolving over the first two or three years of life. That makes it challenging for doctors to diagnose in very young babies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been relied on in the past, but it doesn't always detect the condition in children who are later found to have it.