SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Primitive Reflex Integration on the Surrey/Sussex Border

Handwriting 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…

At Parents’ Evening the teacher told me very subtly that he was almost, but not quite, cause for concern.

So when “lockdown” started (a week earlier for us, as I developed a cough and decided the children shouldn’t be potentially infecting other children at school), I decided that we should focus closely on handwriting.

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.

Corporate FPR: Fear Paralysis Reflex Neuroplasticity SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol Uncategorized

Anxiety: how to retune your nervous system

One of the things I’m most frequently asked about is how to reduce generalised anxiety.

With the current situation continuing to unfold, we all need to look after ourselves and make sure we are not projecting our fears onto our children too.

Here is a brief explanation of how our nervous system works, and how it relates to anxiety:

In order for us not to be in a constant fight/flight/freeze cycle, we must activate our parasympathetic nervous system – or our social engagement system. In this state, we feel calm, able to think clearly, able to communicate clearly, able to listen clearly and able to see clearly. We do not falsely detect threat and are consequently far more engaging to others.

Here are a few simple things you can try, almost anywhere, which will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and help you to feel calmer:

Music – Find a recording of Mozart’s K448 – Sonata for two pianos and stop everything else. Sit in a chair and listen. This piece of music has been proven to reduce stress – and even the occurrence of seizures in kids with epilepsy!
Breathing – Try slowly breathing in through the nose to the count of 4, and out through the mouth to 8. Breathe from your belly rather than ribs!
Gargling – Try very vigorous gargling – to the point where tears start to form in your eyes. When you start getting tears, it means your vagus nerve is firing. Try and keep it up for a few seconds and then relax
Hum – this activates laryngeal muscles, which get signals directly from the superior and recurrent laryngeal branches of the vagus nerve. If done for long enough, this allows us to control our breath, slow down thoughts and enter deep relaxation
Chant – chanting “om” stimulates vagus activity to the digestive tract, and is said to improve digestion and inflammation levels in the body. Chanting “om” following stressful events is an excellent way to reduce stress levels
Laugh – laughter is extremely effective in improving mood and heart rate variability. This is because we use our diaphragms when we laugh – unless we are laughing nervously, in which laughter is shallow and comes from the ribs. Belly laughs are an easy vagus nerve workout! Personally, I have a couple of video clips that keep up my sleeve, which I can’t watch without crying with laughter.
Socialising – socialising and connecting with others is SO important. Being solitary, lonely and disconnected from others severely affects our mood and health. Being around others helps us laugh more, which, as we’ve just established, helps us keep our vagus nerve regulated… Obviously, this is rather difficult under the current circumstances, which is why Zoom is quite helpful to allow us to stay connected with others.
Yoga and Meditation – PROVEN to tone the vagus nerve and reduce stress. I was even discussing this with a respiratory doctor a few weeks ago. It is only your logical left brain telling you it doesn’t work!

All the above are excellent things to do WHILE doing or BEFORE the Safe and Sound Protocol, by the way. The SSP is a five day listening intervention designed to re-tune the vagus nerve, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system and consequently has a calming effect on all the systems in your body.

If you want to dig a bit deeper and help reduce your anxiety permanently, you are welcome to contact me.

ATNR:Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex Spinal Galant Reflex SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol

Retained Reflexes and Auditory Processing Disorder

Today, 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.

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.

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 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

– 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?

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.

SSP: Safe and Sound Protocol

Five hours of music that reduce anxiety

When I first read about the Safe and Sound Protocol two years ago, I was extremely sceptical. How could just five days of listening to an hour of music help anyone?

And yet it’s reported to make a dramatic difference those with anxiety and trauma by reducing anxiety, and also helps people on the spectrum to engage and process external stimuli better.

Being the sceptic I am, I decided to do research further, and found nothing but amazing stories of how the SSP has transformed lives – how children who were previously unable to engage at all are now conversing and making better eye contact, how children are maintaining better focus at school, and how people have managed to dramatically reduce sound sensitivities. All this from a five-day programme?

Then, I read about Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, and decided that it was time for me to take the training. In brief, the protocol helps regulate the autonomic nervous system by accessing and stimulating the vagus and facial nerves by training middle ear muscles, using specially filtered music. Pure magic!

The training complemented my neurodevelopmental therapy. I kept getting lightbulb moments while taking the course, and became convinced that I had to become a provider.

Having completed training, I immediately sent off for an SSP unit, which is a small solid state Walkman, with pre-loaded music – songs about being strong and happy.

I decided to try the protocol out on myself first. I am a fairly well-balanced person on the whole, but can sometimes get anxious about my son’s schooling, for example. I’m also middle aged, and approaching menopause, and was getting hot flushes and disrupted sleep as a result.

On the first day, I listened at bedtime, using an adult colouring book for entertainment. While doing the protocol, it is important not to have any distractions such as TVs, mobile phones, computers – any screens at all, in fact. The ideal scenario is a quiet, cooperative game, like chess or Jenga or something like that. Jigsaws would also be fine, Rubiks cubes, clay, painting, drawing etc. I found the music fairly revolting and distant: it was tinny and moved from one ear to the other and back. I had to listen with the volume turned right up. Twenty minutes or so into the tracks, I suddenly realised that I had a racing heart and was taking very shallow breaths!

How could music have caused such a reaction? So I concentrated on deep, yoga breathing. The hour went quickly. Pretty much as soon as I’d finished listening, I wanted to go to sleep. I slept right through the night until 7am, which I hadn’t done for AGES before that.

The rest of the week continued very much the same. I didn’t feel anything particularly uncomfortable or unpleasant, but just didn’t enjoy the music. Others have reported feeling anxious, tearful and panicked – it is important in this case to listen to yourself and if you feel uncomfortable in any way, pause the track, go and take a drink or a walk and come back to it when you feel ready.

After the five days, I can honestly say that I felt a lot more connected – and much more relaxed.

Important note: The SSP is marketed as an educational product, NOT a medical product, so I am framing the next paragraph as an anecdote, as SSP has not been approved for this purpose.

About two months later, I realised that the SSP may possibly have also helped regulate my monthly cycle: after a year of it being absolutely haywire, it now appears to be back to every 28 days on the dot, just like it was before – the SSP has possibly helped me achieve a better hormone balance. Having spoken to other SSP providers, I’ve discovered that I am not the only one to note incredible hormone regulation in peri-menopause and menopause. This effect is thought to be due to the effect of oxytocin on the menstrual cycle.

I have used the Safe and Sound Protocol with around 200 different clients over the last 18 months, all of whom have reported reduced anxiety, vastly improved social communication in children on the spectrum, better self-regulation, reductions in misophonia and tinnitus, better sleep, improvements in the digestive system and even a reduction in appetite.

My golden rule is that it is essential to get to know and understand each client individually: the SSP involves five hours of listening, but this five hours will look different for every single person, and it’s working out how to deliver it that makes the difference between success, almighty failure and nothing at all.

The Safe and Sound Protocol is available in my clinic, or from iLs accredited providers. Please contact me for further information.