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Which first: Primitive reflex integration or the Safe and Sound Protocol?

primitive reflex integration or the Safe and Sound Protocol

I am often approached by parents seeking out primitive reflex integration as a result of seeing the film “Attention, Please!”

Some people will go on to have a good look at my website, and might see my hierarchy of neurodevelopment, which is the way Move2Connect works… and some will ask whethere it’s worth doing primitive reflex integration or the Safe and Sound Protocol first.

In simple terms, the Safe and Sound Protocol addresses the Autonomic Nervous System, which, in developmental terms, is foundational to our development.

Preferably before, and most definitely after SSP, I recommend a couple of sessions with a cranial osteopath, OR some very gentle work with me in person on a weekly basis (with no home programme).

The Central Nervous System layer and upwards in this hierarchy is what most people know as “primitive reflex integration”. I urge anyone looking into this to research the Safe and Sound Protocol (Autonomic Nervous System) first, particularly if you are dealing with anxiety, behavioural outbursts, attention and focus at school, persistent glue ear in the past, demand avoidance or auditory sensitivities/auditory processing – and especially if you have a child with trauma. In many cases, SSP will offer a huge kick-start to any other interventions.

Because primitive reflexes are getting to be quite well known as a result of “Attention, Please” and Chris Evans’ revelations, people look at reflex integration as a magic bullet. The reality, however, is that our nervous systems and the way our brains are wired are intertwined, and we cannot do one without the other!

primitive reflex integration or the Safe and Sound Protocol

Please also bear in mind that primitive reflexes are what we see on the surface – they are a SYMPTOM of brain dysfunction. We need to work with the whole brain, by addressing autonomic dyfunction first and then the central nervous system, sometimes revisiting the autonomic nervous system if need be.

One frequently asked question is “how long does it take?”. When you start to work with neuroplasticity, you are embarking on a long-term process. If you start with primitive reflex integration, you may see rapid progress initially, which then starts to tail off and plateau if we have not addressed an early enough stage of neurodevelopment.

primitive reflex integration or the Safe and Sound Protocol

When we look at movement, we want the movements I teach you to be rhythmic, coordinated, symmetrical and exact. If they do not meet these criteria, we can assume that there are unintegrated reflexes at play, and, more broadly, that the central nervous system is under-developed. Quite simply, the more consistent you are, the more consistent the progress will be.

My greatest advice to parents looking into primitive reflexes/SSP is to work on yourself FIRST. I know you will probably ignore this advice – I would have done so too, had I read this 8 or so years ago. However, I expect I would have wasted far less money on interventions for my child had I been through the process myself FIRST. I’m particularly looking at you if you have taken your child to every assessment under the sun in order to get them to fit in. The reason why I say this is because you are the centre of your child’s world – you are their safe person. You need to provide your child with their boundaries and safety. If you do not have strong boundaries yourself, how can you do this? Additionally, it is extremely valuable for a parent to understand for yourself how it feels to undergo a programme – also how it feels to work WITH rather than ON a child.

Whatever you decide to do, please be prepared for this to be a long-term process that does not “fix”, but helps a person to be the person they were born to be.

For further information, please contact me.

The Spine, Fear and APD / ADHD

Recently, in an online forum on auditory processing disorder, someone asked an interesting question about whether there is a link between shoulder dystocia and auditory processing disorder and/or ADHD.

There followed some interesting (although not unsurprising comments). The majority said no, because their children had been delivered by C-section. There were many instrumental deliveries due to babies getting stuck, a few extremely rapid births and a lot of babies who needed resusictation or who had been oxygen-deprived at birth. There were also quite a few examples of shoulder and hip dystocia.

Research shows that babies who suffered severe jaundice are at a much higher risk of developing APD and ADHD, as well as those who have had repeated ear infections and prolonged episodes of glue ear.

During labour, mother and baby work together reflexively. The baby doesn’t have to be told what to do, and nor does the mother – otherwise we’d be extinct. If that cooperative dance isn’t working properly, a baby will need help to arrive safely.

The spine in-utero

The neural tube forms within the first 5 weeks of pregnancy. It consists of a primitive brain and spinal cord – our central nervous system. When this little nervous system forms, it reacts to external stimuli – in the early days, by recoiling (fear paralysis reflex) and later by expanding and contracting (moro reflex).

The Spinal Galant reflex starts to emerge at around the 20-28th week, and should mature within the three months of life. This is extremely important as it helps a foetus to start to develop a sense of whole body, with the development of a midline, as well as an upper and lower body and a back and front of body. The spine is also a conductor of sound in utero, and children (and adults) I see in clinic who have auditory processing challenges and ADHD/ADD ALWAYS have spinal reflexes, and often active ATNR, Moro and FPR reflexes too.

Not much later, the Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex starts to develop. Together, the Spinal and ATNR reflexes help a baby to do the wiggle and twist that is the birthing process.

If these reflexes have not emerged strongly enough, birthing becomes a challenge and intervention may be required. Either this, or a birth may be so rapid that a baby doesn’t get a chance to go through the steps to help these reflexes mature, so they remain “stuck” in the system after birth and won’t integrate at the appropriate time. Babies born by C-section do not get a chance to fully develop these reflexes either.

Cue the importance of plenty of floor time and natural development without “props” as a baby grows. The more we try to “support” development with bouncers, walkers and containment methods such as Bumbo seats, the less chance we are giving children to integrate these reflexes themselves.

Signs of a retained Spinal Galant Reflex

To test for the Spinal Galant reflex, I tickle a couple of centimetres on either side of the spine and watch what happens. Sometimes the skin will twitch, sometimes the whole hip will flick involuntarily. I’ve seen extreme reactions in adults as well as children.

A retained spinal galant will cause the following challenges:

cannot sit still
hyper-sensitive to certain sounds
poor auditory processing
midline issues
short-term memory challenges
bed wetting past the age of five
poor coordination, for example, challenges swimming breaststroke
poor concentration
poor stamina
dislike of tight clothing around the waist/cannot bear labels in clothing

The Spinal Galant reflex later matures into the lifelong postural Amphibian reflex. A person who hasn’t developed an Amphibian reflex may have an awkward gait, and little integration between upper and lower body, which will cause coordination challenges.

An unintegrated Spinal Galant can potentially lead to lower back problems later in life, and even potentially scoliosis.

How can we get rid of a retained Spinal Galant reflex?

In fact, my preferred course of action, personally, is to see a client in clinic and assess reflexes and postural control, as well as general observation. I like to take people through a series of movements, designed to wake the nervous system up and get neurons firing. I then like to wait and see what happens. On MANY occasions, spinal reflexes haven’t integrated as a result of a person being in a dorsal vagal state. If this is the case, I recommend the Safe and Sound Protocol to start with, rather than reflex integration.

The Safe and Sound Protocol works by

To encourage your toddler/child to integrate a possibly unintegrated Spinal Galant, get them to scoot around the floor on their back, roll on a balance ball, or roll a ball up and down a wall using their back. You can also get them to dance the “twist”, sit on a balance ball, walk around the floor on their bottom or do snow angels.

However, it may be that it’s appropriate to see a professional to look at the full picture and check to see whether any other reflexes are present.

Because the Spinal Galant can be very much intertwined with the Fear Paralysis and Moro reflexes, sometimes a fair amount of work will need to be done so that everything integrates properly. This is why it’s important to realise that you will need to make a commitment to do movements every single day without fail.

It is also important to bear in mind that when we work with children, we do not aim to “fix” them. What we do is to reduce or remove dysfunctions due to “short circuits” in the body and brain that are causing emotional, behavioural and learning challenges.

ATNR:Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex Babkin reflex Neuroplasticity retained reflexes Special Needs Education SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol

Handwriting, child development and neuroscience

The ultimate reason why I have ended up working to help struggling children (and adults) is because my own child was finding school such a challenge.

My youngest child doesn’t have quite the same challenges: he was teaching himself to read aged 2, could count into the thousands by the time he started pre-school and understood exactly what times tables are and how to apply them from before reception ages.

However, his handwriting…

Last year, before lockdown, at Parents’ Evening the teacher told me very subtly that he was almost, but not quite, cause for concern.

So when “lockdown” started, I decided that we should focus closely on handwriting – but from a developmental perspective rather than repetition.

Before you can expect a child to form letters correctly, they need to have solid neurodevelopmental foundations in place.

This was his starting point, back in April. I know, it’s not bad, but it isn’t automatic or effortless by any stretch of the imagination.

Handwriting sample taken 12th April 2020

What did I do?

There was also a degree of reluctance to write: he’d seen the beautiful handwriting of the swotty girlies in his class, and had already started developing rather poor self esteem as a result. That is sadly a bit of an unavoidable by-product of being in a class of 30 and being a quiet child who just gets on with it rather than demanding attention.

The first thing we did, as soon as we had stopped going to school, was listen to the Safe and Sound Protocol. We played games and used clay to make little pots while listening. Because the situation was a little unusual, in terms of not being at school, we slowed down to half an hour per day, and just did days 3-5 as this was a repeat.

How does the Safe and Sound Protocol help handwriting? Well, in my child’s case, I know that he has quite deep-rooted anxiety and always benefits from an SSP booster. However, the incredible thing that I, and my osteopath colleagues, have noticed is how SSP can help strengthen the midline. We have noticed this on numerous occasions, so given that writing is so multidimensional and involves a lot of cross-hemisphere activity, it seemed like a good starting place.

The next thing I concentrated on was a few pivotal primitive reflexes that help develop a better relationship between intellect and body awareness. I say “pivotal” because these HAVE to be in place for a person to be able to master writing as an automatic skill, rather than something they have to labour over.

We concentrated on Babkin, TLR, STNR and ATNR. Yes, my child has all these. So many children and adults do.

Sometimes, people concentrate purely on hand reflexes for handwriting, but given that I know my child’s history intimately, I chose to start elsewhere. Handwriting is not ALWAYS about hand reflexes.

The next thing we did was some midline crossing movements, in time to music. He loves dancing, so it was pretty easy to build these movements into a dance. The dance moves became noticeably more precise and coordinated throughout the course of a few days.

Next, we progressed onto lazy 8s. This is a very important exercise for motor memory. We started lazy 8s on a large blackboard that we have nailed to the side of the playhouse, and progressed to a small old-school slate, before progressing to paper and pencil.

Here is a video showing the lazy 8 concept.

It was at this point that my child, six and a half, got his first ever wobbly tooth! I was probably more excited than he was.

Why am I mentioning wobbly teeth? If you look into Steiner education, which is 100% based on child development, children are not expected to start writing until they start to loose their teeth. This milestone is linked to brain development and myelination of the Corpus Callosum. If those connections between left and right hemisphere are not strong enough, it is pointless trying to get a child to sit and write letters because they are not developmentally ready to do so.

Next, we were ready to go onto lined paper. Lines are very important, because they show a child where the writing needs to go. This may seem obvious, but some schools hand out blank paper and expect 5 and 6 year-olds to figure this out for themselves.

The books have red guidelines to separate the very top and very bottom of letters. The next line up is for the body of the letters to go on, the next line is to set the size of the body of the letters and the top red line is to set the height of the tall letters. The bottom line is to set the length of the letters with “tails”.

I bought these books from Amazon.

At this stage, we are finally ready to start looking at letter formation. As you have now seen, skipping the earlier steps only frustrates children and can cause low self esteem.

In the UK, the majority of schools seem to learn print first and then progress to cursive. However, if your child has dyspraxia or is likely to have dyslexia, this is a very short-sighted approach, as corroborated by my Level 5 BDA Dyslexia training. Learning cursive from the start is so much easier for children. This way, they can apply the motor memory formed using the lazy 8 letters and you will see letters consistently the right way around rather than muddled bs and ds.

I split the letters into similar motor pattern groups and learn those together, followed by how to join between letter groups.

And this was the result…

Handwriting sample taken on 15th May 2020

If you would like to help your child with their handwriting, please do contact me for further information.

Neuroplasticity SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol

Removing the challenges – not the diagnoses

Twice this week, and several times in the past, I’ve come across people on social media arguing about “cures” for neurodivergent conditions.

The thinking by those opposed to doing any neuroplasticity work to support difficulties associated with these conditions is that ableist people are trying to make neurodiverse people fit into their ableist world.

I can totally see their point when this work is peddled as a “cure”, and cringe when I see people talking about “retained reflexes” being the answer to everyone’s “normals”: these are neuro-developmental differences, not a disease. People have learnt to compensate for their difficulties by working much harder than they need to in order to stay on track – as an adult with a few neuro-developmental differences myself, I would have hated to be told that I needed fixing.

However, I do believe that if challenges, such as not being able to pay attention, being so anxious that you can’t leave the house, or even having physical pain, are causing a person to be held back, it is good to try to attempt to reduce those challenges. Not just for the person with challenges, but also for parents/carers/friends/family.

I’m fairly sure that parents/carers or those with the spectrum of challenges that can be helped would love family members to be able to cope better with transitions, sensory input and situations that make them anxious.

Removing these challenges is not a “cure”. What we are doing is giving development a boost, and helping a person to be the person they were born to be. I, for example, used to wish that I could answer rapid-fire questions in class more easily, or even pay attention to an entire one-hour lecture or later, business meeting, without my mind wandering off to far-flung destinations.

A well-known therapy (which I have no personal experience of) has been heavily criticised, because what it does is to condition a person to behave in the way that society expects everyone to behave. However, the therapy mentioned does not “cure” at all, and neither does it claim to, as far as I know.

However, I suspect that, despite conditioning people to act “appropriately” by getting them to “fawn” (in Polyvagal terms), it causes recipients further anxiety, and is in complete contrast to the Polyvagal Theory (Safe and Sound Protocol), which works with physiological state. After all, if someone with has constipation (and those who live in a physiological state of freeze always have constipation), do you leave it untreated, or do you keep saying it’s part of them and can’t be changed?

What we do as neuro-developmental therapists is nothing to do with “cures”, and certainly nothing at all to do with conditioning behaviour. To us, diagnoses can sometimes be a bit of a mystery in the first place. “Neurodiverse” simply means that the nervous system and brain have developed differently from that of a neurotypical person (except hardly anybody is truly neurotypical in reality). What is wrong with trying to work with it, and give the system a second chance to develop?

It is also important to know that “retained reflexes” are not the be-all and end all. There is so much more to reducing these behavioural, emotional and learning challenges than that. Reflexes are just a tiny part of the picture and not the only thing to focus on – they are a “symptom”, not something you can simply snap into place.

When I had just started training, I was triggered by one of the exercises we were carrying out with each other: I went into a sort of non-verbal shock – I could no longer focus on what was being said around me, I felt as if I had tunnel vision and felt extremely on edge. I went home that evening feeling hypervigilant and didn’t sleep well as a result – in fact, I had nightmares – I was in fight or flight mode (flight, in fact). I then spent a few weeks in that very same state – I felt as if I wanted to shrink up and hide from the world. I avoided social contact with people and hardly left the house! This is a prime example of a “freeze” reaction, in terms of Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal theory.

How the SSP works

Using techniques to take someone out of fight/flight/freeze, we can make a person feel safe in the world and regulate their emotions and behaviour.

I get that people don’t like the idea of being fixed – I really do. As a special needs mum myself, I also really get that approaching people in special needs groups to tell them how incredible reflex integration work can be as anything other than a fellow parent is wholly inappropriate – I only wish people doing the hard sell would realise that they are letting the side down and making this work look cheap and not credible. So please don’t tag me in posts if the subject is mentioned in the future.

I am not a hard sales person. People find me via word of mouth and that’s how I want it to stay.

This is NOT about curing neurodiversity – far from it. The same person is still there, with the same superpowers and the same clinical diagnosis. However, what we do to remove the challenges and help them become the person they were born to be.

We are working with a person, not a medical label.