Retained primitive reflexes in DS 5

[Ipdipdoo]

Looking for anyone who has had any success with getting them integrated for their children

Neuro development therapist says DS has 5 partially retained. Skin brushing has been recommended twice a day

I’m wondering how soon did you see results? Did the behaviour get worst before it got better?

I can't exactly answer your question but we started the skin brushing techniques a few days ago with my DS who is 5 following an assessment for retained reflexes.
I was told the behaviour can get worse before if gets better but that if this happens to return to the clinic. I was also told that it doesn't work on some are retained and some are not, you either have retained reflexes or you don't. I'm hoping to see some improvements in 4-6 weeks but from what I've read the complete programmes generally last 9-12 months.

I was astonished watching the exercises and tests that's were done that appeared to show me very clearly that my son's reflexes were still present.
I cannot believe that this skin brushing is going improve things for us so I would also love to know if this actually works??!!!!

The therapist also confused me when she said that most people have retained their reflexes. I thought I was paying for a therapy to help my son who is 'different' from everyone else in his class but if everyone has retained reflexes then what makes my son different?! If anyone else can explain it to me I'd be grateful!

Good luck with your RR journey - parenting is way more stressful that I'd ever imagined!!!

Hi, my son went through the retained primitive reflexes therapy when he was 11, wish we had discovered it before because it was honestly life-changing. Then we genuinely feared he would never live an independent life, he's now in Sixth Form and plays rock guitar on stage. Happy to answer any questions

@PaulaMoM that's amazing to read - do you mind if I jump in and ask a few questions? I've read bits about this (via Google) and have no frame of reference to root out good information from bad. The name makes it sound a bit pseudoscience-y, but this may just be my ignorance.

Is this something an OT helps with? My son is on a waiting list for an OT assessment. Is an OT the right place to go to get accurate advice (as opposed to Google)?

Why was it life changing? What does it address? Is it something that helps with concentration? My (possibly incorrect) understanding of sensory integration therapy is that it can help a child become more regulated, and therefore less distracted by sensory overload or sensory seeking needs, enabling them to concentrate more on the tasks or learning at hand. Is it akin to that?

My main area of interest is my DS's anticipated ASD diagnosis, but I can't rule out ADHD. Is this relevant to both? I'm aware the two often co-occur.

You can see my absolute ignorance - I hope any of the above questions are even relevant!

@Scratchybaby I discovered it completely by chance when another parent at my son's old school trained as a therapist herself, after her own sons had the therapy, we had already seen speech therapist, educational psychologist, under SENCO at school but they didn't really address his problems at all, we suspected 'on the spectrum' but didn't get a diagnosis and quite a lot didn't really fit, ed psych just came to the conclusion he had 'lack of confidence'. He had always struggled at school with concentration, following instructions, couldn't stand noise, got very distressed over seemingly trivial things, and things really got bad once he started secondary, he couldn't cope with having to be more independent. I looked at this lady's website and so many things resonated that I got in touch for an assessment, we had treatment (exercises and skin brushing) over about a year/18 months. It completely changed his life and ours! Did so much better at school, could organise himself, get on with homework on his own, didn't get panicky about things any more, and from not being able to stand noise he now gets up on stage and plays heavy rock music in front of a crowd! He's now studying music and hoping for a career in that field. Happy to chat more if you want to PM me, some stuff is quite personal. Anyway this is the lady we saw primitive-reflexes.co.uk, can't praise her enough! Symptoms can vary a lot according to the reflex that is retained, there's info on the website, our son had practically all of them! I also strongly suspect I have some too, apparently about a third of her patients are adults

Reading with interest. My son sounds exactly like yours @PaulaMoM . On the surface it does look like autism - but so much doesn’t quite fit. I will be looking at that website right now! Thank you 🥰
And it’s lovely to hear how well things worked out for your son.

@Farmhouse1234 thank you, I really wish this was more widely known about because it's such simple, non-invasive treatment and made such a difference for us, it's so hard to see your kids struggle.There is a documentary on Amazon Prime about it, called Attention Please, it features the guy our therapist trained under, Bob Allen. I hope it helps your son too