Starfish Therapies

Starfish Therapies Starfish Therapies is a pediatric therapy company that is committed to making a difference for children one child at a time. Instagram: starfishtherapies

We provide physical therapy for children ages 0-22. We work with kids with torticollis, developmental delay, orthopedic injuries, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism, post-operative, and many others. We also have many fitness programs for kids starting at newborn and covering all of their growth and development. We additionally see kids in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Please contact us to find out our availability in those locations.

01/06/2026

This video shows a few of the things I love about coming up with treatment ideas!

This little one has had a growth spurt and has some hypermobility so she was having a hard time with stability after break. She was compensating in various ways to try to find that stability.

So, she wanted to play with this toy. It was now my job to figure out how we could use it. I picked one of our more stable balance boards and I gave it extra support too. (We actually started with squats on it to push the lever down but then she asked to use her foot).

I’m always up for increasing the challenge but still making it doable. You can see in the video how she is working to find a way to stabilize her body before lifting her foot. This is letting her problem solve and gives her a focus point for why she is lifting her foot.

The instability of the balance board makes it so she can’t easily just hang on ligaments. She needs to engage her muscles. And engage she did allowing her to avoid collapsing into valgus at her knees or locking out in hyper extension.

Using instability to work on stability is one of my favorite tricks. And figuring out how to work in a toy the child wants to use to accomplish what I want to work on makes a nice challenge for me!

What are some of your favorite things about coming up with treatment ideas?

Save to refer back to this idea!

Meet Courtney 👋Courtney Lordi Kingston, MS, CCC-SLP, is a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist who helps children build...
01/01/2026

Meet Courtney 👋

Courtney Lordi Kingston, MS, CCC-SLP, is a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist who helps children build confidence and joy in communication. As both a clinician and a parent, she brings a compassionate, family-centered approach to therapy—making sessions playful, functional, and meaningful. 💬✨

If you are looking for a speech therapist for your little one you have come to the right place! Contact us to set up your appointment!

Share so others can benefit too!

What a way to start the new year!

01/01/2026

The week between Christmas and New Year can feel like a time warp. Who knows what day it is or what is happening. Add in taking your child to work… but there are some amazing moments. And I didn’t even catch all of them.

I love watching him grow up playing with the kids at work and I love watching the kids light up when he is around. It makes it all worth it!

Thank you for being part of my family and letting me be part of yours. And thanks for letting my Jace join us!

I am so grateful for each and every person who entrusts their child and family with us. We love you all!

12/28/2025

Horizontal Jumping!

Another great way to use a scooter board (and a great ab workout). For little ones that want to jump but have a hard time with the power you can have the practice pushing off a wall. I like when I can make it come back quickly like in this video so they can practice multiple jumps in a row.

You can also have them practice with just plantar flexion or just one leg to work on progressing their skills!

I love getting creative and I especially love the giggles!

Save this idea and share it for others to find!

12/22/2025

Scooter boards are one of our favorite things to use. This is just one way that we regularly use it. Now the challenge is to get the kids to go reciprocally with their arms.

It’s interesting to watch how when they pull with both hands they do great but as soon as it’s one hand at a time they have a hard time. This can be due to several factors. Some of them have a hard time coordinating the reciprocal movement. Others can’t generate enough force when it’s only one arm.

I’ve seen compensations that look like using just finger tips rather than the whole hand. I’ve also seen kids push up into straight arms and pull one at a time that way.

My suggestion would be to play with different ways of doing it. One way is to have then pretend they are swimming and put the arm that isn’t pulling on the board next to their body and then switch. Another option is to just do one arm for several pulls and then switch. Or make it a game and see how far they can glide comparing left and right side. Or add a rope and have them pull themselves hand over hand along the rope.

How are ways you work on reciprocal movement and strengthening of the arms on a scooter board?

Save this post to refer back to!

12/06/2025

Spider Cage
I don’t often use this aspect of the Universal Exercise Unit. I frequently use the weights. However I have a kid who has hemiplegia and is working on power and strength on the affected side.

Hopping has been achieved but not as easily as on the non affected side. So I decided to try the bungees to give a boost. It was a winner. Fun was had the whole time!

The first video shows hopping on affected and non affected. If you watch you will see the difference. So I showed him. He saw right away the difference and the second video is him working on changing the motor pattern.

So this is two part. If you have access to the bungees use it for jumping and hopping. And taking videos to give feedback also works!

I love having kids have fun during the session and make progress on things that are important to them!

Follow us for more ideas!

Aligned to Thrive!Even as a seasoned clinician I am constantly learning. I know how critical core control is for functio...
12/01/2025

Aligned to Thrive!

Even as a seasoned clinician I am constantly learning. I know how critical core control is for function posture. The ribs are a huge part of that and I am excited for this course from to dive deeper and add to my current knowledge and skills.

Start the new year off right and don’t miss out on this course!

An 8-Hour Intermediate Clinical Training for PT, OT, and SLP Professionals
Presented by: Dr. Elizabeth G. Harvey, PT, DPT, DHS, MSR, PCS, CKTI

WEBINAR LECTURE DATES:
January 12, 2026 - 8AM to 5PM EST
(Live Lecture w/ Q&A)
OR
February 8, 2026 - 8AM to 5PM EST
(Streaming w/ Live Q&A)

PRICING:
$250 - Early Bird(On or before Nov 24, 2025)
$250 - Group rate(Minimum of 4 Persons)
$285 - Regular Rate

Comment ALIGN for course registration

Happy Thanksgiving to all. We are so thankful for the families and therapists who come into our lives. It means so much ...
11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving to all. We are so thankful for the families and therapists who come into our lives. It means so much that we get to be a small part of your journey. This year we are thankful for family, friends, and friends who are family.

We hope each of you are able to spend time with the people who matter.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Love,
Stacy and Jace

11/21/2025

What do you do when toes are turned in or out? As you see here we strapped for rotation but that has an extra component.

Before we did that we looked to see where the rotation was coming from. Doing a torsional profile lets you see if it is because of bony or muscular alignment. If it’s bony you do not want to strap because you will put their hips or other joints at risk.

Also check to see if it is just the foot or just the knee. It all makes a difference. Doing an analysis of how they are walking will also give you more info, are they turning in at the hip or is it just the foot? All important questions to consider.

With this little one it was clearly from the hip (her feet were almost 90 degrees lateral) and she didn’t have any bony challenges. She had feet that were pronated and not able to stabilize in neutral. We added shoes which helped some. So then we tried strapping.

This is where it gets interesting. Did you know that kids can fight against something or they can sink into it? Well they can. We did strapping to encourage internal rotation and she kept or increased her external rotation. So we switched it up and did strapping towards external rotation and this is what we got. Her body fought the pull so encouraged the internal rather than go along with the straps. This got her the most neutral yet!

Don’t just strap because of what you think j you see. She is the first kiddo I have strapped in a long time despite working with kids with in toeing and out toeing.

What questions do you have? How do you approach cases like this?

Save to refer back to!

11/16/2025

Using a ball is a great way to work on standing balance. It’s a dynamic support and you can facilitate hip hinging with knee flexion so that they learn how to play in the sagittal plane (forward and backward). It’s great for kids who lock out at their knees or don’t have a lot of bouncing play.

How do you encourage front and back play?

Share to help others find fun ideas!

11/14/2025

I keep planning to do a full post on push ups but since I can’t manage to video my child I’ll go with this!

I inherited several kids with push up goals and despite doing them on benches or knees they were not able to manage the form and elbow bend.

I finally had them just work on lowering all the way to the ground and had some more success but they quickly figured out compensations.

So I took it back to the wall. Yes we can progress it from here but they are learning the form and how to lower. They are able to keep their core and hips mostly stable while bending and extending their elbows.

They are getting a chance to learn the motor pattern and how to coordinate the stability and mobility before we make it even harder by adding in more gravity.

A simple hack but one I’m using (and I’ve been doing it with them and can feel a difference!)

Save to refer back to for your next kid who is doing push ups!

Address

1541 Old Bayshore Highway
Burlingame, CA
94010

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6:30pm
Tuesday 8am - 6:30pm
Wednesday 8am - 6:30pm
Thursday 8am - 6:30pm
Friday 8am - 6:30pm
Saturday 8am - 4pm

Telephone

+16506389142

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