Retained primitive reflexes

[MuscleMama]

Working memory is the ability to actively hold information in the mind needed to do complex tasks such as reasoning, comprehension and learning. Working memory tasks are those that require the goal orientated active monitoring or manipulation of information or behaviors in the face of interfering processes and distractions. The cognitive processes involved include the executive and attention control of short-term memory which provide for the interim integration, processing, disposal, and retrieval of information. Working memory is a theoretical concept central both to cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Visual memory is a part of memory preserving some characteristics of our senses pertaining to visual experience. We are able to place in memory information that resembles objects, places, animals or people in sort of a mental image. Some authors refer to this experience as an “our mind's eye” through which we can retrieve from our memory a mental image of the original object, place, animal or person.

Most learning disabled students have serious deficiencies in the area of visual memory. Visual memory involves the ability to store and retrieve previously experienced visual sensations and perceptions when the stimuli that originally evoked them are no longer present. That is, the student must be capable of making a vivid visual image in his mind of the stimulus, such as a word, and once that stimulus is removed, to be able to visualize or recall this image without help. Various researchers have stated that as much as eighty percent of all learning takes place through the eye with visual memory existing as a crucial aspect of learning ( Farrald & Schamber 1973).

Children who have not developed their visual memory skills cannot readily reproduce a sequence of visual stimuli. They frequently experience difficulty in remembering the overall visual appearance of words or the letter sequence of words for reading and spelling. They may remember the letters of a word but often cannot remember their order, or they may know the initial letter and configuration of the word without having absorbed the details, that is, the subsequent letters of the word. As a result, these students fail to develop a good sight vocabulary and frequently experience serious writing and spelling difficulties.

Visual memory, in an academic environment, entails work with pictures, symbols, numbers, letters, and especially words. Students must be able to look at a word, form an image of that word in their minds and be able to recall the appearance of the word later. When teachers introduce a new vocabulary word, generally they write it on the chalkboard, have the children spell it, read it and then use it in a sentence. The word is then erased from the chalkboard. Students with good visual memory will recognize that same word later in their readers or other texts and will be able to recall the appearance of the word to spell it. Students with visual memory problems often will not. Once the word is erased from the chalkboard, the word is also erased from their minds, and they will not be able to recall it later. Later may be only a few seconds later or days. Without a good development of visual memory, it is extremely difficult for students to learn because visual memory is essential to learning. It is the skill that helps them to store and retrieve information........

Here are a few explanations I found online. My older son showed a poor working memory during his neuropsych eval and poor visual memory during his vision eval by the behavioral optometrist. This is probably contributes to his trouble writing - holding the ideas in his head long enough to get them onto the page while also struggling with the physical task of writing. However, he is an excellent speller (last year he made the spelling bee team as one of the top 5 in his grade), so I don't understand that.

Yes, I started blogging about the program we're doing (link in my signature). I posted a couple of videos yesterday - the first has some highlights from the initial evaluation that shows the intense response my younger son had to the spinal galant. He started crying badly, which they have never had a child do before. You can also see both boys' crawling patterns, hopping and skipping. Seeing ds2 try to hop and skip kind of shows his motor difficulties.

Already 2 weeks in there has been big improvement in the exercises we're doing at home. When we will start to see that translate into improvement in life remains to be seen. The program will probably take 12-18 months, so we have a long road in front of us. But at least we're on the road!

[MuscleMama]

Also, check out this chart "The Ontogeny of Human Neurologic Functions" which starts at birth and goes thru 12 stages to around age 6 and covers the categories of vision, auditory, tactile, mobility, language, manual. By going over each skill and stage, he measures whether the kids are functional, need work or are lacking in each area. As we go along he will periodically retest and we will be able to measurably see the progress the boys make. I think it's fascinating.

[bunkie68]

Thank you so much for sharing all of that! What you said about your older son's trouble writing makes sense to me with respect to my son. In fact, if I recall correctly, the psychiatrist who did his evaluation back in March said that it would be very difficult for him to do something like copy work from the board - he'd have a hard time going back and forth between looking at the board and getting the information out on paper.

I talked to one behavioral optometrist's office - the exam there would cost us our regular specialist co-pay ($25) plus an additional $323 for things they know insurance wouldn't cover. That's discouraging, because right now, we just don't have an extra $323 lying around. I hate that money is an obstacle to us trying to do right by Julian. And of course our insurance changes in 2011, so who knows what it will cover and won't cover then? I did find one behavioral optometrist whose website offers an online evaluation. They do make it clear that that isn't 100% accurate, and I wouldn't expect it to be. But it's free, and it may be worth having Julian go through that online assessment to see if it's something we might consider pursuing further.

[MuscleMama]

Yeah, the behavioral optometrist we saw doesn't take insurance (it wouldn't have been covered anyway) and was very expensive. I did find that thru Children's Hospital in Boston there is a new vision therapy dept (I'm pretty sure I posted some details in my thread 'my younger son') where he had a 2nd eval for just the copay, although she didn't get into the reflexes.

The website that sells that home primitive reflex booklet also had an at-home vision therapy program that was supposed to be available I think around now. Might be worth looking into for you.

Also, the guy we're working with does have some long-distance clients. I don't know how that works and I'm not plugging him because it's too early for me to say for sure we're getting results, but if you wanted to get in touch with him he's very approachable.

[RedHairedWitch]

Interesting!


Vestibular problems: motion sickness, poor balance and coordination.
* Motion sickness is rare but am very clumsy. I get vertigo sometimes, which was worse as a child. (I am 30yrs old)

Physical timidity.
* Yes. Worse as a child. I often lean against the wall while walking down stairs, hang onto railings and such. Think twice before walking on certain surfaces or down drops. Mountain Biking has actually helped with this a lot.

Eye movement and visual perceptual problems.
* "Flickering" eyes, always moving, trouble focusing on one thing for any length of time. Near sighted.

Stimulus bound effect – cannot ignore irrelevant visual material within a given visual field; the eyes tend to be drawn to the perimeter of a shape to the detriment of perception if there are internal features to the shape.
* Yes, if I am tired. This was much worse when I was a child.

Light sensitivity, difficulty with black print on white paper, tires easily under fluorescent lighting.
* Yes, yes and yes. In high school I started wearing sun glasses to school, they thought it was to hide blood shot eyes, nope.

Possible auditory confusion resulting from hypersensitivity to specific sounds (the child may have poor auditory discrimination skills and have difficulty shutting out background noise).
* Definitely have a hard time telling background noise from everything else. It all blends together. This has gotten worse as I get older. I also often can't tell which direction sound comes from.

Allergies and lowered immunity; i.e. asthma, eczema, or a history of frequent ear, nose, and throat infections.
* Nope

Adverse reaction to drugs.
* I avoid them anyways so can't really say.

Dislike of change or surprise; poor adaptability.
* Nope, I crave change and am very adaptable.

Mixed laterality (child may use left foot, right hand, left ear, or he/she may use left or right hand interchangeably for the same task).
* Sounds about right.

Poor swimming skills.
* Yes until I was forced into one on one swimming lessons by my swim coach auntie. Much better now.

Fidgeting.
* Yes but I hide it better now.

Bedwetting
* Stopped at about 4 and started again at about 12 then stopped again at 15. I do tend to hold it for longer than I should as I get distracted.

Poor concentration.
* Yes, also gotten better since childhood.

Poor short-term memory.
* Very much so.

Vestibular-related problems (i.e. poor sense of balance, carsickness).
* Poor balance, worse when tired or when I was younger. Activities such as mountain biking have greatly improved this.

Dislike of sporting activities, physical education classes, running, etc.
* YES though individual sports such as snowboarding and mountain biking became passions in my adulthood.

Eye movement, visual perceptual, and spatial problems.
* Moderate spatial problems.

Poor sequencing skills.
* Yes, this is also improving with adulthood

Poor sense of time.
* Time? What's time?

Poor organization skills.
* Yes, this is also improving with adulthood.

[MuscleMama]

Here is more info and practitioners of "neurological reorganization" - maybe someone is near you, Bunkie?

http://www.a4everfamily.org/index.ph...=44&Itemid=114

[bunkie68]

Originally Posted by MuscleMama

Here is more info and practitioners of "neurological reorganization" - maybe someone is near you, Bunkie?

http://www.a4everfamily.org/index.ph...=44&Itemid=114

Sadly, no - I'm in Texas. I appreciate the thought, though, and I'll keep looking.

[MuscleMama]

Bunkie, I've been googling and reading more and more about neurological reorganization and I found this group that travels to TX and thought of you

http://www.neuroreorg.com/

[bunkie68]

Thank you! I wish I'd seen that site sooner, because they are (or were) in Dallas this month. But I'll see when they might be back this way. That would be excellent!

[MuscleMama]

I've been researching and collecting info to share about neurological/neurodevelopmental reorganization which is what we've started and has a lot to do with retained reflexes. I plan to start a new thread with some info because I think a lot of parents may be interested in learning more about it for their kids.

I just came across this site which has a ton of interesting info, video clips and books and videos for sale. Much of what I see there is similar to NR and might be a good starting place for someone wanting to check it out more on their own.

http://www.fernridgepress.com/

[LynneC]

Thanks for the link. She has some exercise instructions listed that I think I will start with my 8 year old.

[lkngforanswers]

Originally Posted by bunkie68

I've seen this mentioned/discussed in a couple of threads, so I thought I'd just start one on it.

After what I've read, I suspect this may be part of my son's issues. In particular, I suspect the spinal galant reflex has been retained. I came across this today:

http://visionandlearning.org/blog/?tag=vision-therapy

This bit particularly struck me (bolding mine):

Spinal Galant
The Spinal Galant (SG) integrates by 9 months. There is still not a clear understanding of the purpose of the SG, but it is thought to also help the baby through the birth canal and may help to develop response to sound in utero. If it does not integrate well, the most common manifestation of the SG is the “ants in the pants” syndrome where a child cannot sit still or sit in a chair. They often have difficulty with tags or particular types of clothing (too loose or too tight). It can manifest on one side or both sides of the body. If both SGs of the body are stimulated at the same time, it can cause bedwetting. Integrating the SG can help “calm” a child and help them to sit still and concentrate.

Common causes of retained reflexes are cesarean section, not enough tummy time, lack of or little experience creeping and crawling, early walkers, head injury, excessive falls, and chronic ear infections.

Julian – c-section, hated tummy time with a white-hot passion, didn’t crawl until he was starting to walk, and had chronic ear infections (had five double ear infections within a two-month time period, and had tubes put in his ears when he was nine months old). He has a hard time sitting still (unless he’s playing a game or the melatonin has kicked in), he has quirks about tags and clothes, and we struggle with the wet bed. If I could find a specialist in this area that worked with retained primitive reflexes, I would totally take Julian there.

I wanted to write in and tell you THANK YOU for this VERY useful post! Had it not been for your post and others, I would've known NOTHING about this or vision therapy!!! My son now has upcoming appointments to be tested with a vision therapist as he has several of the signs/symptoms (of both the vision and the retained primitive reflexes). I'm determined to get to the bottom of this. I can't THANK YOU enough!!! I think this post should be a STICKY! Why do doctors and/or regular optometrists not inform us of this possibility???

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[LAMPJ]

Hi,
My son has been listening to special music now for 5 months and had exercises to do. Bed wetting stopped after about one week. His new teacher was unaware that he had previously had trouble concentrating in class. Apparently he sits still and concentrates on his work - that is a HUGE improvement.
However, he still has problems changing from one activity to the next and is loud and impulsive as before, listening is a challenge but any change, however small is welcome.
I really think that these techniques can help kids with some of the challenges of ADHD. However, I would also add that it is a real challenge to get them to do the exercises and music and I can imagine that in some children with extreme symtoms a frazzled parent would be hard pushed to get their child to co-operate

[Corinna]

Hi,
we followed a programm (INPP) for integrating reflexes religiously for 2 years every day for 15 minutes.
My son was 6 or seven and could not swim, ride a bike, swing, catch a ball, stand on one leg etc.
After the 2 years were up he could do everything and his various PE teachers would have never guessed that he once had dyspraxia. He is now 12 and in the strong PE group - what a miracle!!

I can warmly recommend this therapy for dyspraxia.

A year after we finished this programm symptoms of adhd became more apparant. We are trying now the book 'Stopping adhd' which is based on inhibiting the STNR reflex. it is all about crawling. Does anyone have experience with crawling exercises?

Corinna

[bunkie68]

Originally Posted by lkngforanswers

Why do doctors and/or regular optometrists not inform us of this possibility???

I'm so glad it helped! Doctors and regular optometrists may not inform us of it because they may not be aware of it. I figure that's why I have to keep digging, because no one professional can know of everything that may be affecting my son.

Originally Posted by LAMPJ

Hi,
My son has been listening to special music now for 5 months and had exercises to do. Bed wetting stopped after about one week.

Really? Wow! My son still struggles with occasional bedwetting. What program are you using?

We ordered an at-home program to try. We'll see how it goes.