Pediatric neurorehabilitation
First what works. Then what is being studied.
Families of children with cerebral palsy, autism, brain injury or genetic epilepsy are offered a great deal: early intervention and therapy on one side, stem cells, exosomes, peptides and stimulation on the other.
This site puts them in order of evidence rather than in order of novelty. It starts with the interventions that clinical guidelines actually recommend, and only then turns to the ones still being investigated — with the honest state of each set out plainly.
The one question
“For which condition, at what age, on what evidence?”
A licence or a guideline recommendation is always for a named condition and age group. Cord blood is an approved treatment in blood disorders; magnetic stimulation is cleared for depression in older adolescents in some countries. Their use in cerebral palsy and autism is still being studied, and is not yet established for those conditions. That does not mean it does not work — it means the answer is not in yet.
See the evidence table →Acute / subacute
Drowning, head injury, encephalitis, childhood stroke
A child who was well until a specific day is in a different situation. What is done differs at two days, two months and two years — and three things run in parallel: systemic management, rehabilitation, and later the supportive treatments.
Acute brain injury →Layer one
Established care
Guideline-recommended, trial-supported, and for most children the things that will actually change their day. If these are not fully in place, they are where the next decision belongs.
Early detection and early intervention
The single highest-value thing in this whole field, and the one least often discussed in clinics selling treatment. Cerebral palsy can be identified in the first months of life, and that is when therapy does the most.
Established careGoal-directed, task-specific training
Not a brand of therapy but the principle underneath the ones that work: the child practises the actual task they are trying to learn, with enough repetition to matter.
Established careEarly behavioural and developmental intervention
Early structured support for an autistic child is recommended care. Which kind, how many hours, and towards what goal are all still genuinely argued over — and the arguing is the useful part.
Established careConstraint-induced therapy and bimanual training
For a child who uses one hand much more than the other, these are among the best-evidenced interventions in paediatric neurology — and both work, for different things.
Established carePhysiotherapy and strength training
Well supported when it is built around function and genuinely loaded — much weaker when it is passive stretching and generic exercise.
Established careOccupational therapy
The discipline that works on what the child actually does all day — dressing, eating, writing, playing, getting through a school morning.
Established careSpeech, language and communication
For a child who cannot speak clearly, giving them a way to communicate is among the most consequential interventions available — and the fear that it will stop them talking is unfounded.
Established careSpasticity and tone management
Medical and surgical treatment of tone, which works best when it is tied to a functional goal rather than to a number on a tone scale.
In clinical trialsTechnology-assisted rehabilitation
Useful mainly as a way of delivering more practice, not as a treatment in its own right — and that distinction decides whether it earns its place in the week.
In clinical trialsNamed physiotherapy approaches
Families are usually asked to choose between brands. The evidence says the brand matters far less than whether the session is active, goal-directed and repeated often enough.
In clinical trialsSensory therapies
Two things are sold under one word. Manualised Ayres Sensory Integration has been tested in trials; the sensory add-ons sold around it mostly have not.
Established careVision and cerebral visual impairment
The most commonly missed problem in children with brain injury. A child who cannot interpret what they see is often described as inattentive, uncooperative or more delayed than they are.
Established careDietary therapies
One of these is an established antiseizure treatment with randomised evidence and a place in guidelines. The others are widely used in autism with much weaker support. The word “diet” covers both, which is why they are set out separately here.
Layer two
Diagnosis-led treatment
Where a precise genetic cause is known, licensed medicines can change the disease itself. None of this works without the diagnosis — which is why the test usually matters more than any treatment brochure.
Getting a precise diagnosis
For a family weighing newer treatment options, this is almost always the first step. A molecular diagnosis can open the door to a licensed medicine — or definitively rule one out.
Established careGene-targeted treatments
The genuinely transformative development in paediatric neurology — and it is strictly conditional: these treatments work for named genetic diagnoses and do nothing at all without one.
Layer three
Emerging treatments
Stem cells, exosomes, Muse cells, peptide preparations, light therapy, magnetic stimulation and supplements. None of these has yet entered routine practice in children. Behind some there is now a substantial and fast-growing literature; behind others the data are still thin. Each page here sets out what the evidence actually shows.
Stem cell therapy
Several different products share this name. Some are licensed medicines for blood disorders; none is a licensed treatment for cerebral palsy or autism anywhere in the world.
Early research onlyExosomes
The cell-free next step after stem cells, with genuinely interesting laboratory science — and, in children, almost no controlled clinical evidence at all.
Early research onlyMuse cells
A distinct, well-characterised cell type with an unusual biology — it appears to find damaged tissue on its own — supported by a substantial laboratory literature and an early but real clinical programme. Controlled paediatric efficacy data are not yet available.
Early research onlyPhotobiomodulation
Non-invasive, painless and simple to deliver compared with cell therapies, with a literature that is growing quickly and is mostly positive. The studies are still small and short, so the open question is not whether anything happens but how large the effect is and how long it lasts.
In clinical trialsMagnetic stimulation
The most clinically established technique on this site. Approved for some uses in older adolescents, with its best paediatric results when it is paired with intensive physiotherapy or occupational therapy rather than given on its own.
Early research onlyPeptide preparations
Two quite different things share this word: prescription neuropeptide preparations used routinely in some countries, and an unregulated wellness trade. Neither has good evidence in children.
Early research onlyMedicinal mushrooms and nootropics
A research band worth watching, and a supplement shelf to approach carefully. Some of these compounds have real laboratory interest; almost none has been tested in children with neurological conditions.
Established careCannabidiol and cannabis-based products
The one product in this group that became a real medicine. Licensed for three named epilepsy syndromes, and supported beyond them by a large body of real-world evidence in other drug-resistant epilepsies. The oil sold in a shop and the licensed solution are still not the same thing.
Not supported by evidenceChelation therapy
The idea behind it was tested and failed. There is no trial evidence that it helps an autistic child, there is a documented record of children harmed, and at least one child has died. This is the clearest no on this site.
Early research onlyProbiotics, prebiotics and the gut–brain axis
Genuinely interesting science with a few solid, specific uses in children — and a large gap between those uses and what is sold to families of autistic and neurologically disabled children.
What this site will not do
It will not tell you the emerging treatments are worthless. Several are under genuine investigation by serious groups, and some may one day become standard care.
It also will not tell you they work. Where the honest answer is nobody knows yet, that is what you will read — because a family deciding whether to spend savings and hope on a treatment deserves to know the real state of the evidence.
By condition →
Cerebral palsy, autism, newborn brain injury, genetic epilepsies — what is being tried for each, and whether the reasoning holds.
Safety and what to expect →
The risks that actually matter per treatment, and how to measure whether anything changed.
Judging a therapy →
Trial phases, eight warning signs, and what a serious centre does differently.