08/22/2021
Hi Everyone. Many of you know I work with movement and reflex integration. I'd like to teach them to parents and kids in small groups as soon as I find the right location. Hear is some information about them!
Integrating Primitive (Innate) and Postural Reflexes
I began learning about the innate reflexes five years ago when I took Sonia Story’s class Brain and Sensory Foundations, Level One. I have gone on to read, study, complete Sonia’s Level Two training, and take the first two trainings with Rhythmic Movement International. I work with my own reflexes several times a week as well as in craniosacral sessions with many clients. I often teach playful movements to be done at home.
I am one of many who are so impressed and excited about this information that we want to share it with as many people as possible! Let’s start with some explanations:
Reflexes
Within the human body a reflex is a response to a stimulus that happens automatically without any awareness or purposeful participation by the individual experiencing it. It is a gift from Nature.
Innate or Primitive
We are all born with “codes” wired into our nervous systems that result in specific movements when activated by a specific stimulus.
When we are born our nervous systems and brain are still in a stage of growth and development and we have no voluntary motor control. Without these codes that stimulate movement we wouldn’t survive. They are, for example, in charge of us breathing, rooting, latching, sucking, swallowing, voiding, startling and crying to name some of the ones used in the first few hours of life.
There is a progression of others programmed to turn on as we grow and develop more neuronal complexity over the first few years of life.
That’s amazing enough but there’s more!
These automatic movements actually stimulate our brains to grow the neuronal network that will eventually take over the movements and wire them up with our conscious awareness in greater and greater complexity.
These reflexes ideally pass through 3 stages.
First they have to emerge or appear.
Second they must fully develop and become mature.
Third they must become so integrated within the increasing complexity and sophistication of our growing brain and nervous system that they settle deeply into dormancy. This is useful because the reflexes movements are simple and are not refined or precise or smooth or coordinated.
Each one is foundational for the next reflex movement so if some of the early ones are not able to fully mature,
they will not stimulate the building of the brain to its potential complexity and
they will hang around and can be fired off when the person intends something else.
Postural
These also emerge and mature but are intended to be part of our life long resources for functional living. They have to do with core strength and orientation in space.
I work mostly with underdeveloped ( not fully matured), unintegrated, or re-emergent primitive reflexes in both children and adults.
The reflexes are meant to stimulate the healthy growth of our brains. The early ones help develop us physically, then others help develop our emotional regulation, and lastly others stimulate the development of cognitive skills.
Important to remember
These reflexes become dormant but never disappear
While essential in foundational brain development they can later cause hindrances in many areas if underdeveloped, not fully integrated, or if they re-emerge after a trauma ( stroke, accident, emotional overwhelm for example).
Age appropriate Movement is the key to healthy brain development. It is the movement that develops the brain fully. If you try to rush your child through a developmental stage so they can get to the next one you are in fact getting in the way and creating roadblocks that will delay the progress you are so eager to see. The same is true for your own recovery from concussion or stroke or other trauma.
Let Nature be in charge and work to help Her do what she is already doing so brilliantly.
Movement is the Forgotten Food Group!
