Primitive Reflexes
REFLEXES – Their Impact on Success or Failure in Education
“When a child is born, he leaves the cushioning and protection of the womb to enter a world where he is assailed by an almost overwhelming amount of sensory stimuli….
To survive, he is equipped with a set of primitive reflexes designed to insure immediate response to this new environment and to his changing needs. Primitive reflexes are automatic, stereotyped movements, directed from the brain stem and executed without cortical involvement.
They are essential for the baby’s survival in the first few weeks of life, and they provide rudimentary training for many later voluntary skills. The primitive reflexes, however, should only have a limited life-span and, having helped the baby to survive the first hazardous months of life, they should be inhibited or controlled by higher centres of the brain. This allows more sophisticated neural structures to develop, which then allow the infant control of voluntary response.
If these primitive reflexes remain active beyond 6-12 months of life, they are said to be aberrant, and they are evidence of a structural weakness or immaturity within the central nervous system (CNS). Prolonged primitive reflex activity may also prevent the development of the succeeding postural reflexes, which should emerge to enable the maturing child to interact effectively with his environment….
The primitive reflexes emerge in utero, are present at birth, and should be inhibited by six months of age – twelve months at the latest….
Detection of primitive reflexes can help to isolate the causes of a child’s problem so that remedial training can be targeted more effectively.”
“Reflexes, Learning and Behaviour by Sally Goddard”
How do we inhibit/Suppress Primitive Reflexes?
There is no magic/quick fix!!
Logic will tell you, that if a child naturally inhibits these reflexes through movement in the first 12 months of life, then every endeavour needs to be made to ensure -
- a child has moved through the sequence for the correct duration of time as a baby. OR
- An older child is given a 2nd opportunity to move through the sequence over a reasonable time frame (*it is important that the child is physically able to complete all the movements).
PLEASE NOTE
- there are no switches we can turn on to suddenly integrate the reflexes in the child.
- there are no pills or potions (they only mask the symptoms).
- no gadgets or computer programmes either!!
Reflexes and Learning
“A reflex stimulation/inhibition program consists of specific physical, stereotyped movements practiced for approximately five to ten minutes per day over a period of nine to twelve months. The movements involved are based upon a detailed knowledge of reflex chronology and normal child development….
Inhibition of a reflex frequently correlates with the acquisition of a new skill. Thus knowledge of reflex chronology and normal child development may be combined to predict which later skill may have been impaired as a direct result of retained primitive reflexes.”
“Reflexes, Learning and Behaviour by Sally Goddard”
The Essential Moves Programme uses natural physical movements to
- inhibit reflexes.
- integrate postural reflexes eg one postural reflex is necessary for balance when riding a bike.
- improve co-ordination – ball skills, dancing, etc.
- build tone and strength – impacts fine motor skills for hand writing.
- improve saccadic eye movements – necessary for reading.
- improve temporal awareness – necessary for maths.
YES!! It takes time & effort, but it holds!
Just like a crash diet doesn’t work in the long term, so called quick/fix Sensory Integration schemes don’t work either.
If it seems too good or easy to be true it probably is!
You have to work the body, in the correct sequence for reasonable duration to give messages to the brain to make lasting change
