All Things Sensory by Harkla
All Things Sensory by Harkla
#318 - What's Next? Maintenance Program After Integrating Primitive Reflexes
Today we’re answering a question that we received from Instagram: “Can you talk about the end point of reflex integration work. What does that look like?”
We chat about what a reflex integration program looks like and how to create a “maintenance” program afterwards.
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I'm Rachel
Jessica:and I'm Jessica, and this is All Things Sensory by Harkla.
Rachel:We are both certified occupational therapy assistants and together with Harkla, we are on a mission to empower parents, therapists and educators to help raise confident and strong children of all abilities.
Jessica:On this podcast, we chat about all things sensory, diving into special needs, occupational therapy, parenting, self care, overall health and wellness, and so much more.
Rachel:We are here to provide raw, honest, and fun strategies, ideas, and information for parents, therapists, and educators, as well as other professionals to implement into daily life.
Jessica:Thank you so much for joining us.
Rachel:Hey there. Welcome back to All Things Sensory by Harkla. We are so happy to have you today. This is like our real first podcast on video. So if you don't know, if you've never seen me in real life before, I'm Rachel.
Jessica:And I'm Jessica.
Rachel:And we are the hosts of All Things Sensory. If you are not watching this, then you should, you know.
Jessica:Missing out.
Rachel:You should. Take a quick break, watch it, come hang out with us, or just continue to listen because the content is going to be exactly the same.
Jessica:Yeah, it's going to be super helpful. What are we talking about today?
Rachel:Today we have a question to answer. It's a really great question, and it is a question about what are we doing after we've completed a reflex integration program.
Jessica:Yes. Yeah, is there an end point? What does that look like?
Rachel:I told you it's a really great question.
Jessica:It is a really great question.
Rachel:So instead of this being really like an informational episode, it's definitely more of like a conversational like.
Jessica:Well, hopefully it's still informational.
Rachel:Yes, but we're not giving like strategies for X, Y, and Z. It's like, okay, we've completed our, let's just jump in.
Jessica:Okay.
Rachel:We've completed our, let's say,
Jessica:60 day
Rachel:reflex integration program. We've integrated two reflexes that were really impacting function.
Jessica:That's a huge success.
Rachel:It is.
Jessica:Yes.
Rachel:So the child, we're gonna have a, have a child who was doing this and the child was, Really struggling in certain areas and now they are able to go to school. They're able to focus. They're able to copy from the board. Maybe it was their ATNR and maybe their STNR. We'll stick with those two today
Jessica:So they've integrated their ATNR and STNR. They're seeing functional benefits in daily life. The integration program was a success. So the exercises that they were doing for the integration plan, do they keep doing the exercises? Do we create some sort of maintenance plan? Which is my thought. If they were working with a therapist in the clinic or privately who put this on their, who put them on their, this program to integrate the reflexes, does that therapist now create a maintenance program for them?
Rachel:I think that would be great because my example of reflex integration over the lifespan is always like drinking a cup of coffee in the morning or working out.
Jessica:It's just like your sensory diet.
Rachel:Exactly. If you stop doing it, you could potentially regress. Not always.
Jessica:No.
Rachel:And in the sense of reflex integration, but I feel like to see and to continue having maximum benefits and keeping the brain strong and flexible, a maintenance plan for me would be like wake up in the morning, do a couple of reps of the exercises, continuing about your day.
Jessica:Sure, and maybe it doesn't have to be every day anymore like it used to be. It's more of like a workout maintenance program, right?
Rachel:Yeah.
Jessica:You go and you work out a couple times a week, but you're not necessarily going hard every single day Like you did in the beginning.
Rachel:Mm hmm Yeah, that's personally how I include reflex integration in my life is when I'm working out, I will add some of the exercises at the end of my workout, kind of like a cool down and I still feel a lot better when I do that.
Jessica:I know I'm thinking that if it's the ATNR and the STNR, the exercises that the child completed were the lizard and the cat cow. So the family can then incorporate those two exercises into the weekly routine once a day, every other day, as part of the sensory diet routine along with the other activities that they're already doing for their sensory diets or for other reflexes. If they want to work on other ones as well.
Rachel:Yeah. So if they had more than the ATNR and STNR unintegrated, then we would want to move on to those next exercises to integrate the next reflex. But I think that's where it's important to remember is to continue doing, you know. Especially if you're, if you're having a hard day, if you're feeling dysregulated, if we're going in to take a test, or if we just need a little bit of a brain boost, we can use these reflex integration activities as like a, wow, like let's let's boost our brain power, let's bring both sides of the brain together, kind of as like a hack, you know?
Jessica:Yep, I think in a perfect world, a child will go through a reflux integration program, integrate, several integrate or integrate several primitive reflexes, and then not necessarily just stop everything completely. But incorporate those activities and those exercises into the weekly routine. Like you said, bust them out when they need to, but making sure that we're not forgetting that these exercises are beneficial even once the reflexes are integrated.
Rachel:Yes.
Jessica:These exercises are still creating that mind body connection, firing across both sides of the brain when we're using both sides of the body, getting a lot of vestibular and proprioceptive input with the different movements. So there's no harm. I think that's the big takeaway here. There's no harm in continuing with those exercises on a daily or weekly basis.
Rachel:Let's say in an example of a situation, we integrate the reflexes where we've, you know, maybe a seven year old has integrated all of the reflexes. Woo woo, doing great, and then a traumatic experience happens for the child or the family.
Jessica:Maybe they're in a car accident.
Rachel:Maybe they're in a car accident, yeah. You know, they're going about their day, they're safe, everything's fine, but the caregivers are starting to notice some of those reflex tendencies start to come back. Maybe they're struggling with their left and their right, they don't know which hand to grab their pencil with. Maybe they're really struggling with organizational skills. Maybe they're stuck in fight or flight. Maybe they're having these big reactions, these emotional challenges. So let's say, you know, God forbid something happens and those reflexes come back in any situation. I think, in this case, we would want to start over with the reflex integration program. And, you know, whether or not you are going to do this with a therapist or whether you are going to do this at home on your own. I always say under the guidance of a therapist is best, especially, you know, if there was a traumatic experience like a car crash, talking with some about someone about that and working with someone about that. But having the tools in your back pocket to say, Oh my gosh. I recognize that my child is in fight or flight. Let's start working on these moro exercises. Let's start getting their brain to have these higher connections and get back to to functioning at their best.
Jessica:Yeah, absolutely And I mean that's going to happen the potential for that is going to happen all throughout a child's life and an adult's life.
Rachel:Yeah.
Jessica:Things happen whether it's a big traumatic event like a car accident or something that's not that doesn't seem as big like the death of a pet. Yes. It's big. I'm not trying to downplay that, but like from a physical trauma standpoint, you know, like the death of a pet can be emotionally and mentally traumatic and that can potentially cause some of these reflexes to start to like come back to try to protect the body. And so just having these tools, these exercises, these activities that target primitive reflexes, having them in the back of your pocket to pull out when you need them is huge.
Rachel:Yeah, definitely.
Jessica:Just like you said. So I think the takeaway here is that one, go through the primitive reflex integration program, focus on integrating those reflexes, incorporating those exercises into the daily routine for a minimum of 30 days. Usually it takes longer because life isn't perfect. And then once you start to see the functional benefits, the improvement, whether it's with just the exercises, but ideally you'll see improvements in everyday life. Then just continue, you know taper down slowly, but don't take the exercises and activities away completely.
Rachel:I think just take the intensity down a little bit instead of doing them two to three times per day, try just two times per day, then taper down to one time per day. I think that these kids are going to want to be done with these exercises. They're going to get through the program. They're going to be motivated to get through their 30 days, their 60 days, whatever it is that you've set up and then when it's like, you know, Yay, we did it. The reflex is integrated and then they're like, Oh crap, I have to continue doing these. We want to make sure that we are explaining the reason why behind we're the reason why behind we're do, am I saying this right? Explain the reason why behind we're, why we're doing these activities as like, we're going to boost our brain. This is like an exercise. This is beneficial. I'm going to do them with you. We're going to get down and play together, whatever, whatever works.
Jessica:I will use this as an example of working with some kiddos and incorporating more crawling activities. Thank you for crawling for development, the book, we'll link that. Um, but just actually started with crawling activities as their home program and once they, the child successfully completed their week of crawling, and they brought their sticker chart back, and they earned their prize, and they got a new home exercise program for new crawling activities, I did tell the family that, Hey, try to keep crawling every day. Like, just because you guys did it for the week doesn't mean it needs to be taken away or taken off the plate. Ideally, you can start to incorporate it every day, even when the child is not earning stickers for OT, for these exercises. So, kind of similar to that is, I mean, we've said it already, but you see the success, don't take it away completely. It's like if you stop working out because you, you're, you're like, you're flexing your muscles and you're like, Oh my gosh, look at the muscles. Look at the definition.
Rachel:Wow.
Jessica:Right?
Rachel:Yeah.
Jessica:Keep going. You don't just take them away because you will regress. Again, primitive reflexes, once they're integrated, they're not necessarily going to come back unless there's a traumatic event, but just continuing with them has so many positive benefits.
Rachel:And that's what I've heard from the research for adults who are doing these activities, for adults who have retained primitive reflexes. They feel their best and they function their best when they do continue the exercises on a daily basis. Like, Oh, I wake up, I drink my coffee. Like I said, when I'm working out, I will add a different exercise in while I'm working out and I think it makes a huge difference. feel so much more organized. When I'm putting the kids jammies on, like, we're crawling around the room from one place to another. Like, it's just little changes that you can do to really benefit your brain in so many ways.
Jessica:Yep. So, all of that to say. Yes, there is an endpoint in a primitive reflex program. However, we want kind of a maintenance plan afterwards to continue to incorporate those exercises because of the huge benefits.
Rachel:Exactly. If you are listening to this and you are looking for a reflex integration program, if you are trying to implement and learn about primitive reflexes, we have a course that teaches you how to test for reflexes, how to screen for them, and how to integrate them as well as how to integrate them into functional play based activities. It is AOTA approved, which means occupational therapists and assistants do get those continuing education units, and we do include a huge, massive workbook that is full of pictures, demonstrations, activities, information. It is like. the Bible of primitive reflexes.
Jessica:It's the primitive reflex Bible.
Rachel:Seriously, it's because, and we put it together because this was what was missing from the industry, you know? There was, there was no guide put together, so we had to make it.
Jessica:We might need to create like a follow up course that is the maintenance.
Rachel:Oh. Reflex integration maintenance program. I want to hear some more success stories of people who have completed the reflex integration program and I want to hear how it has benefited your life. So.
Jessica:We do have the comment forum in the course and people do comment in the forum talking about the benefits they've seen. There's actually a couple of adults in the course who have commented about the improvements they've seen in themselves.
Rachel:Amazing.
Jessica:So It's there. You can get it. We'll link it. Yeah.
Rachel:I think this is our first podcast on video. We did it. Thank you for hanging out with us. We hope you loved it and we will plan on seeing you now next Wednesday.
Jessica:Yeah, seeing, not just talking.
Rachel:I know. Okay, bye. Thank you so much for listening to All Things Sensory by Harkla.
Jessica:If you want more information on anything mentioned in the show, head over to Harkla.co/podcast to get the show notes.
Rachel:If you have any followup questions, the best place to ask those is in the comments on the show notes or message us on our Instagram account, which is at Harkla_family, or at all things sensory podcast. If you just search Harkla, you'll find us there.
Jessica:Like we mentioned before, our podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla. Whether it's for one of our digital courses or one of our sensory swings, the discount code sensory will get you 10 percent off. That's S E N S O R Y.
Rachel:Head to harkla.co/sensory to use that discount code right now.
Jessica:We are so excited to work together to help create confident kids. While we make every effort to share correct information, we're still learning.
Rachel:We will double check all of our facts but realize that medicine is a constantly changing science and art.
Jessica:One doctor or therapist may have a different way of doing things from another.
Rachel:We are simply presenting our views and opinions on how to address common sensory challenges, health related difficulties, and what we have found to be beneficial that will be as evidence based as possible.
Jessica:By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or your child.
Rachel:Consult your child's pediatrician or therapist for any medical issues that he or she may be having.
Jessica:This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast.
Rachel:Thanks so much for listening!