Trying to Reduce Toe-walking among children with Autism

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I toe-walked 24-7 until I was perhaps 7 or so. A doctor recommended to my mother that I wear some strange boots that would effectively force me to walk correctly but my mother just ignored the toe-walking and I guess I grew out of it. I typically walk on my toes when I go up and down stairs but normal walking is currently most natural.

Right now I'm 22 and have toe walked for as long as I can remember. I was told by a doctor when I was younger that I had tight tendons and I did the stretches and still do to this day but when I walk normally I can hear my footsteps and I hate that sound! As far as I can tell I don't have any damage from toe walking. Though I do tend to scare people when I walk into a room because I don't make any noise.

I'm a lot less clumsy on my toes compared to normal as well. Don't know if it's normal or not but I can correct any lose of balance better on my toes.

I'm confused, if toe walking is so bad. Why is it that most.women walk that way. I mean odd shoes or not. Or is it one of those gender things?.

Most women don't walk that way! If you mean the ones wearing high heels, they are still distributing their weight as it falls into the shoe (irrespective of what the shoe itself could do to affect balance and posture), not consciously putting their weight onto the ball of their foot as in toe-walking.

I cannot for the life of me imagine, how toe walking, unless it's done the majority of the time, could cause shortened tendons or anything else. If you physically walk normally a lot of the time too, your ligaments and muscles are experienced in both types of walking.

I am 24 and I have toe-walked since I was a toddler. I don't do it constantly, but I would say at least 70% of the time. I recently saw a specialist who said it had not damaged anything, and that my tendons were only slightly tighter than normal. He said there really wasn't any reason that I had to stop.

My parents tried every intervention they could when I was a kid, and nothing worked. The casts that I had to wear for 6 months further alienated me from my peers, and all of the physical therapy made me miserable, as did the constant nagging by my family and teachers to "put your feet down." My balance on my toes is great, and I am much clumsier when I try to stop doing it.

My son is also a toe-walker and I don't intend to do anything about it unless he later decides that it is something he wants to stop doing.

This may not be very relevant to the original post, but I felt like chiming in that toe walking has caused me no problems and is not something I have ever wanted to change about myself.

Toe walking is harmless, and is done to relieve stress, whether that stress is tactile defensiveness or as a result of some unknown stimuli. or it can simply be done for the sheer joy of it.

I still toe walk, and get joy out of it myself. When I feel small, it makes me feel big, when I feel big I don't do it.

I'm 46 If you told me I couldn't toe walk I would get upset and feel repressed.

The main problem with toe walking is not to the person toe walking, but to the parents and society in general that feels uncomfortable with unusual behavior.