CPTA approval pending
Clinical Reasoning in Pediatric Physical Therapy
From findings to decisions across seven settings
Seven children. Seven settings. One set of reasoning skills that does not change when the building does.
- 6.0contact hours (0.6 CEU)
- 7fully worked cases
- 120post-test items
Open to anyone who wants the reasoning, whether or not you need the credit. The course is written and in review. Put your name down and we will let you know when it opens.
Most pediatric continuing education teaches a technique. This one teaches the decision underneath it: what question this setting is actually asking, what the child is telling you, what the family can carry, what is safe today, and how to write it so the reasoning is visible to whoever reads the chart next.
This is for you if
- You are strong in one pediatric setting and about to work in another
- You supervise students or new grads who reason well in theory and freeze in the room
- You can list the red flags but hesitate on what to do the same afternoon you see one
- Your notes describe what you did rather than why it was skilled
- You need contact hours and would rather they were useful, or you just want the reasoning
Anyone can take it. Continuing education credit requires a license, so the contact hours count for licensed PTs and PTAs. Students are welcome and often take courses like this for the content rather than the credit, which is the larger half of what is here. Target audience for credit: licensed physical therapists and physical therapist assistants practicing in, or preparing to practice in, pediatric settings. Instructional level: Intermediate.
Seven settings, one child at a time
- School-based
- Early intervention
- Outpatient
- Inpatient and acute
- NICU
- Pediatric oncology
- Home health
The six modules
Self-paced. Average completion time is listed for each module, and the post-test and evaluation are included in that time.
- Module 160 minutes
The setting changes the question
Marcus, 6, referred twice in the same month
The same boy generates two correct and different answers, one from the school and one from the clinic. Educational relevance and medical necessity are not the same standard, and the family hears both.
- Module 260 minutes
Reading the child
Aisha, 9 months, told her mother was worrying
Milestone ages are the wrong instrument. Quality, frequency, and function are the right ones, and they are what turn a reassured infant into an early detection referral.
- Module 360 minutes
Reading the context
Jonah, 2 years 10 months, six weeks from his transition
You are present for a fraction of the child's week. A father on swing shift, a Spanish-speaking grandmother, an interpreter, and a car seat that starts a fight every morning.
- Module 460 minutes
Safety-first reasoning
Isabela, 13, post-op day two; and Omar, 5, week one of radiation
Four decisions, every session: proceed, modify, defer, stop. Lines, counts, precautions, and a child who cries without a trigger because of where his tumor was.
- Module 560 minutes
From findings to plan
Lily, 7, who cannot ride a bike
The tool answers a question, so the question comes first. Then the plan is built on how children actually learn movement, not on a list of exercises.
- Module 660 minutes
Making it defensible
Sam, 15, a progressive condition and an IEP due
The capstone. Every skill in the course, chained through one adolescent, ending in goals and a note that would hold up to anyone who read them.
Total: 6.0 hours, including the post-test and evaluation.
Learning objectives
On completion of this course, the learner will be able to:
- Differentiate the clinical question, eligibility standard, and documentation language of pediatric physical therapy across seven practice settings, and select the setting-appropriate reasoning pathway for a given referral.
- Interpret gross motor performance using quality, frequency, and function rather than age alone, and identify the red flags that warrant escalation or referral.
- Apply family-centered and child-centered frameworks to gather caregiver-reported data, obtain assent, and design caregiver-delivered practice embedded in daily routines.
- Prioritize physiologic and safety information before and during intervention with medically complex children, and determine when to modify, defer, or stop.
- Select assessment tools and observation strategies appropriate to the child, the setting, and the clinical question, and translate findings into an intervention plan grounded in motor learning principles.
- Construct functional, measurable, setting-aligned goals and documentation that make clinical reasoning visible and defensible across settings.
Built on current evidence, checked line by line
The course carries 75 references. Sixty-seven are peer-reviewed and PubMed-indexed, published between 2023 and 2026. Every one was retrieved through the NCBI E-utilities and verified against the PubMed record, and every claim in the manual was checked against the abstract of the source it rests on. Where a paper said something narrower than the sentence citing it, the sentence was rewritten. Nothing is cited from memory.
Where a parameter genuinely varies between centers, such as casting protocols, spinal fusion precautions, shunt positioning limits, or the platelet and neutrophil thresholds that govern an oncology session, the course says so and teaches the reasoning rather than inventing a number your institution does not use.
Faculty
Kyan Alnajafi, PT, DPT, PhD. Pediatric physical therapist with practice across early intervention, school-based services, outpatient pediatrics, inpatient and acute care, the NICU, pediatric oncology, and home health. Former Doctor of Physical Therapy faculty and clinical instructor. Postdoctoral research fellow. Author of clinical education texts in pediatric physical therapy.
Course details
- Format and instructional method
- Self-study. Reading of a written course manual with worked clinical cases, followed by a post-test.
- Instructional level
- Intermediate
- Contact hours
- 6.0 contact hours (0.6 CEU), calculated by the CPTA self-study page-count method at the Intermediate level and cross-checked against the Mergener formula.
- Program schedule
- Self-paced, approximately 6 hours. Access for 12 months from enrollment.
- Completion requirements
- Read the full course manual, then take the 120-item post-test online. It is scored the moment you submit it, and you need 80 percent or higher to pass, with two retakes if you need them. You also sign a short attestation that you completed the course independently and submit a course evaluation. Your certificate is issued automatically on passing, with no waiting and nobody to email.
- Approval
- Pending. Submitted to the California Physical Therapy Association, a Physical Therapy Board of California Recognized Continuing Competency Approval Agency. The approval number will be published here and printed on every certificate once issued, and no certificate is issued before then.
- Where the hours count
- Once approved, the hours count in California directly. Many states accept continuing education approved by another state’s board or APTA chapter. Requirements differ by state, so confirm with your own licensing board that the course meets your requirements before you enroll.
- Disclosure
- The instructor is the author of published clinical education texts in pediatric physical therapy and the owner of BeingThePT, which sells those texts. No product is required to complete this course, and no product is promoted within the course content. The instructor has received no compensation from any third party in connection with this course.
- Cancellation and refunds
- All sales are final. The complete course is delivered immediately on enrollment, so no refunds are issued once access has been granted. Please read the course description, the objectives, and the module outline above before you enroll, and write to drky@beingthept.com first if anything is unclear.
- Accessibility
- The manual is delivered as a tagged, text-searchable PDF with a logical reading order, alternative text on figures and tables, and sufficient contrast. The post-test and evaluation are accessible and are not timed. Accommodation requests to drky@beingthept.com are answered within five business days and provided at no cost.
- Price
- $149 for an individual. $990 for a ten-seat clinic license.
- Provider
- BeingThePT, California. drky@beingthept.com
One email, on the day it opens
The course is finished and waiting on an approval number.