Author Response

Excerpt

My coauthors and I would like to thank Dr Westcott and Ms Lowes for their interesting and insightful commentary. I would first like to address some of their specific comments regarding our research report and then conclude with a more general discussion of logistical issues in evaluating the outcomes of interventions in cerebral palsy.

Because no prospective study had been conducted previously that examined the effects of a strength training program in preadolescent children with cerebral palsy, we were in uncharted waters and needed to make several assumptions based on the available scientific evidence. The first assumption was that children with cerebral palsy have quadriceps femoris muscle weakness as compared with children without cerebral palsy. The second assumption was that the hamstring muscles, which frequently shorten in cerebral palsy, were relatively stronger than their antagonists, the quadriceps femoris muscles.…