About
Ashley Brandt is the heart and soul behind Little Daisy Development.
Ashley is a doctor of physical therapy and mother of two who is passionate about helping all babies reach their optimal potential.
Advanced Specialities
Ashley has been practicing pediatric physical therapy for over 10 years. She has a passion for growing as a clinician and strives to provide best care for her patients.
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Ashley is gentle and skilled when it comes to handling your baby. She focuses on facilitating typical movement patterns to enhance strength and optimize gross motor development. She also closely monitors postural alignment and identifies asymmetries that could negatively impact future development.
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Ashley has developed advanced bodywork skills through continued training and education.
She has an advanced certification in neonatal massage and utilizes aspects of myofascial release, craniosacral therapy, total motion release, and trigger point release in her interventions yielding excellent results.
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Ashley works with babies with feeding difficulties due to tethered oral tissues or other tension patterns resulting in oral motor dysfunction. She recognizes that the entire body is connected through the fascial system and utilizes a whole body approach to improve postural alignment, mobility, and oral motor skills to help improve feeding outcomes
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Ashley has worked in a level IV NICU as the primary therapist for over 6 years.
She is passionate about working with babies who had a bit of a different start. She loves to help NICU babies defy the odds against them and works passionately with families to help optimize developmental outcomes.
This also hits Ashley on a personal level as her son was born with a congenital heart defect and required hospitalization and surgery at birth. This experience allows her to relate to other NICU moms.
Although NICU babies are at higher risk for developmental difficulties and delays they often lack developmental support. Ashley is dedicated to provide the support needed.
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Ashley has worked with countless babies with Torticollis. She is skilled at addressing the route cause of the Torticollis and takes a whole body approach to treatment to avoid future developmental issues. Due to Ashley’s expertise she can help your baby to avoid many of the secondary movement and developmental issues we see due to Torticollis.
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Ashley has extensive training and experience with analyzing movement patterns in both term and preterm babies. She is certified in the general movement assessment (GMA), which allows early identification of high risk long term neuromotor disorders like Cerebral Palsy.
Experience
Ashley has committed her career as a physical therapist to serving the pediatric population.
After graduating with her Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Quinnipiac University she moved right into the world of pediatrics working at a well known Children’s hospital in the inpatient and outpatient settings where she gained extensive experiences working with a variety of patient populations.
She soon learned that her real passion was working with infants in the early stages of development.
For the last 6 years Ashley has focused her career to specialize in neonatal and infant care. She provides developmentally supportive care to premature and medically complex infants in a level IV NICU as well as in the outpatient settings after discharge.
She continues to advance her skills and knowledge through continued education and certifications. She has an advanced certification in neonatal massage and is also certified in Prechtl’s General Movement Assessment. She has completed specialized training in Craniosacral Therapy and Total Motion Release, two techniques she incorporates regularly into her care.
While working in a hospital based setting she recognized limited resources and long therapy wait lists for babies.
She also noted gaps in support for new parents and a need for wellness opportunities to improve developmental outcomes for both the healthy and medically complex populations.
She was inspired to better serve her community by establishing Little Daisy Development.
Personal Story
Ashley was born and raised in southern A.A. county and is happy to be back serving the local community.
In addition to being a PT Ashley is a mom to two amazing kiddos. Parenting has allowed Ashley to grow as a clinician so that she can better relate to parents on their journey. She is also the mom of a child with a Congenital Heart Defect and spent time in the NICU while he underwent life-saving procedures and open heart surgery. This experience has made her passionate about helping the NICU and CHD populations.
Ashley loves to get outside to explore nature with her family!