anyone know about retained reflexes?

[takemesomewheresunny]

Someone had mentioned it in another thread.

Possible Effects of Retained Reflexes -

Self Help/Independence Skills;
Difficulty with fastenings, buttons and learning to tie shoe laces
Messy eating
Dribbling
Poor organisation
Persistent desire for oral stimulation
Continued bed wetting

Academic Skills;
Difficulties learning to read / dislike of reading
Copying difficulties, slowness, mistakes etc
Handwriting difficulties
Poor written expression of ideas
Reversals of letters and numbers after the age of 8 years
Poor concentration
Poor memory
Difficulty shutting out background noise
Ocular-motor and visual perceptual problems
Photosensitivity

Coordination, Balance and Physical Activities;
Poor posture
Odd walking/running gait
Clumsiness
Tendency to walk on toes
Difficulties with ball games
Tendency to get travel sick
Poor sense of time
Dislike of PE
Poor Balance
Floppy or tight muscle tone
Poor stamina
Difficulty with learning to swim especially with aligning upper
and lower body

Social, Emotional and Behavioural issues;
Poor emotional control
Insecurity
Allergies
Hypersensitivity /over-reaction to certain sounds
Poor adaptability
Generalised anxiety
Sensory overload

This website describes the type of reflexes and effects: Unintegrated Reflexes

At lot of crossover with ASC and hypermobility. So all adds to the confusion. Just wondering if anyone has experience of it. Improved by Neurodevelopmental Movement or Brain gym...

Yes-we do reflex inhibition with DS (5) ASD and dyspraxia-for us huge leaps forward with this in terms of improved balance/co-ordination/proprioception/writing etc. BUT expensive and took a long time (8 months of daily exercises) to see an improvement so not an instant result thing at all. Sadly for Rivens DD didnt work so think it depends on your underlying diagnosis. We are doing with INPP practitioner but there are others who do it including some OTs but we couldnt find anyone in our area. Also expensive so be warned...
HTH and feel free to ask me any questions

Good to hear from you madgebettany-was it Ann you saw? There is little doubt that for my DS doing these exercises is having a positive effect-speech and lang better etc-let me know how you get on! Be warned when you do the exercises to correct the moro we had dreadful behaviour for a bit...

friend found sensory trained OT for her son and they have been doing exercises for about a year - there have been gradual good changes so do give a it a go. visibly he is more coordinated, but also seems happier generally.

also did 'therapeutic listening' with same OT - also helpful.

also do look at gluten free casein free diet - that has also been helpful. look at treatingautism website - lots of good stuff on diet and supplements there.

We're strarting treatment for this over the summer at the sound learning centre in London. £600! But if it can reducue his anxiety to a managable level....

Official dx of aspergers, but I really wonder if we could correct his sensory processing problems and his retained reflexes how much aspergers he'd have left.

Am a bit worried about how we'll get him to do his exercises every day which is why we're starting in the holidays

Good luck madgebettany-hope it goes well-we are seeing her next week too!! Just addressed the moro-hard bloody work but coming out the other side now!!

Oddgirl. How do you address the moro reflex.Just curious. We are waiting for our OT to do a sensory test on DGS but know he does the startle reaction, doesnt upset him tho. ?

We check for retained moro reflex when doing developmental assessments before patients start vision therapy. In the two years that we have added this I have only found one patient who had integrated this. I plan to add more reflexes to our list but at present we are only working with moro. Patients can improve and learn to integrate primitive reflexes and it is a basic neurological platform for so many things sensory-wise.

Oh, and as far as addressing moro, here's a simple exercise.

Have the child hold some type of long dowel rod or even empty wrapping paper tube in both hands at waist level.

With palms facing UP, the child walks first forward and then backward with toes pointing in.

With palms DOWN, the child walks with toes pointed out.

Things to look for are:
curling toes
stiff legs
knees locked together
poor upper body posture
facial grimacing

HTH

jabberwocky
who can vision therapy help? what is invovled? wehre is is based geographically?
thanks

(in relation to 12 yr old boy with ASC- doing work on ret reflexes, done therapeutic listening, doing gfcf diet so things improving, but interested in more )

vision therapy can help all sorts of patients in all sorts of ways. I did a 1 hour lecture on vision and autism in May. Kids with developmental delay and/or who are on the autistic spectrum can have visuo-spatial problems that contribute or even cause certain stimming. This is a good place to look up information. I am in the US but you can look here to find out about behavioral optometrists in the UK. I would say it is definitely worth looking into and should fit in well with the therapies that you are already doing or have done. Most of my patients are receiving OT or have in the past and several have gone through a course of therapeutic listening.

For moro we sit in a chair you can rotate (having a blonde moment about what you call these!) with arms and legs crossed in sort of foetal position-rotate chair SLOWLY to right for 45 secs, then back the other way for 45 secs. have seen one done on a gym ball where children start with arms and legs crossed and then sort of splay backwards (looks like doing the moro)..very poor explanantion but thats the gist...really need someone who knows what they are talking about !!

We did Retained Reflexes & VT with my son. He'd been given a diagnosis of Dyslexia (among others by EP), two years later this was 'label' was removed.

It helped him significantly, not only with reading but also S&L, writing, coordination, behaviour, proceopreation etc squint also disappeared. We also found out child had a narrow field of vision (which I think) can be related to retained reflexes. I will add that although VT helped son significantly it hasn't got rid of all his difficulties he still has probs with writing, co-ordination, laces, swimming, maths, social skills etc.

It was difficult to get son to do the exercises all the time, which prpbably added to the length of time we did them, but I would certainly recommend.

We used Caroline Hurst,(BABO CHAIR www.babo.co.uk/), she is very passionate about her work and I'm sure she would be willing to answer any questions you may have about the therapy.

I will add that although VT helped son significantly it hasn't got rid of all his difficulties he still has probs with writing, co-ordination, laces, swimming, maths etc.

thanks jabberwocky - will investigate