OTS 32: An Intro to Reflex Integration Feat. Sonia Story
- Jayson Davies
- Jun 9, 2019
- 36 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 32 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
Have you been hearing the term "Primitive Reflexes" pop up in IEPs or in the OT room? What about Reflex Integration? To be honest, I remember learning a little about some of the common infant reflexes were in college, but it was only a quick overview. We definitely did not cover what we could do when a child presented with retained primitive reflexes.
In this episode of the OT School House Podcast, Jayson interviews Sonia Story. Sonia is the creator of the OT/PT CEU Brain And Sensory Foundations courses at MovePlayThrive.com See the limited-time discount offer below.
Sonia is absolutely passionate about the use of innate rhythmic and reflex movements to help students who are struggling with behavior, learning, anxiety, and ADLs. She originally got started in this field while trying to help her own children several years ago and has not stopped learning how to better serve the families she now works with.
Listen in to this episode if you are interested in getting a taste of what reflex integration is and what it could potentially look like in a school setting!
Links to Show References:
Quick reminder: Links to Amazon.com and other websites on this page may be affiliate links. Affiliate links benefit the OT Schoolhouse at no additional cost to you. I appreciate your support by using these links.
The below references were mentioned throughout Episode 32
Visit this special page and share your email with Sonia at MovePlayThrive.com to get the:
Slides related to this episode
A free handout related to integrating reflexes
And a limited time discount for $30 off on the Brain and Sensory Foundations course (valid until 6/30/19)
Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not All in Your Head, by Carla Hannaford (Short book)
Brain Gym: Teacher's Edition Book on Amazon
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Jayson, hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode 32 of the OT school house podcast. If you haven't listened to the podcast before, my name is Jayson Davies and I am the host, and we got some cool stuff to get to before we get into our interview today. The first thing is our contest winner. So last episode, I kind of challenged you all to go ahead and post something on social media that shows how you're listening to this podcast. And well, we had a book to give away from the dysgraphia consultant Sherry daughter, as well as a sticker and a bookmark, so we're going to give two of those packages away right here in a second. But first I want to say thank you to everyone that participated, thank you for listening all the way to the end of the podcast to learn how to do it. We had several entries, and unfortunately, I can't give away that many books, but I hope to have many more giveaways in the future. It was really cool actually seeing where you all listened to I mean, some people were saying they were listening to Hong Kong, other people in Australia, we had one person who was talking about how she was listening while she was on a ferry going to work. She actually takes a ferry to work, like the car type of ferry, and then on other days, she actually has to hop on a plane to go to work, to be a school based. OT, so that's just crazy. And that wasn't that was in Missouri, I believe, or Michigan. So yeah, it's just really cool to see everyone listening to the podcast where you're listening in from all that good stuff, really cool. So with that, let's announce the winners. I'm gonna take a drum roll right here. And the winner is from Twitter, Kenzie Lindquist and from Instagram, Bethany wiltscher. Bethany and Kenzie, if I haven't reached out to you already, I will shortly, and you will get your handwriting brain, body disconnect book from Sherry daughter, as well as a dysgraphia bookmark that comes with that. And also send you an OT school house sticker to go along with that. So congratulations on winning, and I will send those out to you shortly. Again. Thank you to everyone else who participated in this giveaway. I really appreciated seeing all those Instagram and Twitter and all the other social media posts come in. It was really cool to see. So thank you. All right. Well, it is officially June, and we're going to jump into today's content, which is about primitive reflexes and reflex integration. So today I'm bringing on Sonia story of moo play thrive.com where she actually teaches a course called the brain and sensory foundations. And in that course, she has different levels, but she's going to kind of give us a little introduction of what primitive reflexes are and how to potentially integrate reflexes. A little bit so quick. Background on Sonia, she does have a little bit of medical background, but she's not actually an occupational therapist. She did get into reflex integration because she thought that it would actually help her kids. And from there, she just started taking every course she could potentially take on different types of movement integration, reflex integration. Ball of physics was one of the courses as well as brain gym. So that's kind of how she got into this. And while doing all that, she actually trained with several psychologists, several professionals, kinesiologists, and has since developed her own training at move, play, thrive.com, under the name brain and sensory foundation. So she's here to introduce us a little bit to that, and she's actually going to offer some free resources, including some slides to go along with this presentation, as well as a discount code. So I will be sure to put those up at ot schoolhouse.com. Forward slash, Episode 32 for you all to reference to. And with that, here is Sonia story from move playthrive.com, I hope you enjoyed the interview. Hey there, Sonia. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing this morning?
Sonia Story
Hi Jayson, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me great. And
Jayson Davies
so you are up in Seattle. Why don't you tell us a little bit just about where you are?
Sonia Story
Well, I'm a couple hours north west of Seattle. So I'm in the country on the Olympic Peninsula, and hope to see you up here sometime visiting me. That'd
Jayson Davies
be fun. I haven't been up to Seattle or that area in a long time, so that would be interesting. So tell us a little bit about your background. We're here to talk about some the integration of reflexes and stuff like that. But how did you get into this, into this realm?
Sonia Story
Okay, so I this is an interesting story. So when I went to college, I got a degree in it was a combined major of biology and psychology. Then I. I got married, had children, and was really wanting to figure out more of like, what I could do to be of service in the world, and what would be suitable for me to do as my kids were growing and I but I was actually having some troubles with my two children, because our first daughter was very sensitive and our second daughter was really hyperactive. So between the two of them, they triggered each other all the time, oh no, and I was in tears many days, just trying to be a parent and and I picked up a book called Smart Moves, why learning is not all in your head. And it was a book that featured some of the movements from brain gym. And I started doing that, and they worked really well, whereas other things I've been trying to teach my children, like nonviolent communication, those are great tools, but in the thick of things, when you're triggered, they didn't remember to use them, nor did I, and it was basically a painful experience trying to be a good model for my children when their nervous systems were dysregulated, as was mine and when my family we were living in Hawaii at the time, and when we moved to the Pacific Northwest, I had the opportunity to take courses. We were in a big transition, so my husband didn't have work yet, and so he stayed home with our two girls, and I went and started to take courses. And it was such a fortunate time in my life, because I was able to take course after course after course after course. At the end of my brain gym training, I got my certification and license to teach that, but I also learned about these reflexes, these primitive reflexes. And I was utterly astounded, because I recognized, just in the one course, one, that they were fundamental, fundamentally important to our functioning. And two, I had a lot of them that were on integrated, and I just couldn't believe it was like, Why haven't I heard of this? And all I could think of was that I remember a physiology professor saying, when the baby's born, they have a suck reflex, and they know how to get their nourishment. That's all I could remember about primitive reflexes. And I was hooked, because I started doing the movements for myself, for my children, and it made a huge difference for all of us. And so I went and got more training, and then more training and more training. And I really, after several years of going to course after course, after course, I and I realized, wow, I'm learning from some of the best mentors in the world. In this subject, I studied with Dr Harold Lombard, who's a psychiatrist, Moira Dempsey, Kinesiologist, Dr moskatova, who's a psychologist. And any anyone I could go with. I even studied with Mary kuar A little bit. And it was so fascinating to me how well these movements worked and how much of a need there was. And I kept thinking, gosh, we got to get this out to parents. We got to parents. And so I started formulating like the best of the best tools I could figure out that I could teach in a condensed but in depth, comprehensive way. And so I started putting together a course, which evolved into my brain and sensory foundations course. And I've just been so thrilled with how well this works, and that's how I got into it. I just put together the best of the best tools, and then what happened is, parents didn't come, but OTs came.
Jayson Davies
Oh, okay, so I want to stop you there real quick then, because we haven't mentioned it yet, or maybe I have in the intro, but you're not an actual occupational therapist. You're not a physical therapist. And usually when we think of these types of treatment strategies, that's what we tend to think of, an OT, a PT, maybe a vision specialist or something like that. But that's not what you are and so but you have taken all these classes. It sounds like you got into this through your kids. But have you noticed that going through these classes, not being an OT or not having that medical background? Was it more difficult? Or how did you feel while taking these courses?
Sonia Story
Okay, so I was absolutely so excited to take these courses. I was just. Go into it, it was like, this is the best thing I've ever learned in my life. I mean, it was so applicable, applicable. I could see results right away. I started doing this with other children I had. I started working with private clients of all ages, but mostly children. And the parents would come back and just say, this works so well. And then I started to feel like I really had a responsibility to share it. And I was scared, because I'm not a medical professional, and when OTs and PTs started showing up at my class, you better believe I was very nervous about it, but at least I had the basic language of biology, because that that's what I studied, and I learned a ton from them. And I realized, okay, these souls are my friends. Yeah, right. And they also wanted to know about the research, so I got really into reading the research and presenting it, and I learned a lot from them. And I kept asking. I literally asked hundreds of OTs. I said, do you learn this in OT school? And what they said was almost unanimously, they said, no. What we learn? We learn about primitive reflexes. We learn how to test for them. We learn that they're soft neurological signs, but we don't learn what to do about them and how to integrate them and how to work with them. And so then I realized, okay, so what I am teaching, there is a huge need for this absolutely, yeah. And so since then, I've just had so many OTs that one of the things that just kept coming back. Was so many OTs who were highly trained, came back and said, these are the best tools I've ever learned for sensory processing issues. And I was like, wow. Well, I knew they were great, but why is that working so well? And then what I realized is, this is just what we're doing, is we're replicating development, and we are just taking normal development and doing it over. Because there are so many gaps in normal development. I just want to say one more thing, because and then we can go but the thing is, is, because this is normal development that we're working with, I don't see myself as a medical professional. I leave that to OTs, PTs and doctors and healthcare professionals. But what I do do is i It's not that I offer treatment, it's more like I offer movement education. So I see myself more as an educator, a movement educator, and I always refer out it, you know, to other medical professionals when there's a need. And there often is, I often refer out to, you know, functional medicine doctors or OTs or PTS or chiropractors, things like that, Vision doctors. But what I do know is that these movements are hugely important, and they are absolutely the foundation for function. So I just see myself, as you know, having had a lot of training and replicating development, so it's more of an educational process.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, okay, and that's perfect, because the reason that I really wanted to bring you on today is because I have seen an influx of parents or reports from an outside psychologist or something like that, and in their findings, they are actually recommending, I'll put this in quotes, is reflex integration therapy. And like I said, that happened to me personally. So when that happens, when, when someone asks you, what is reflex integration therapy? What do you what is your definition for parents?
Sonia Story
Okay, this is so funny because I realized this is something that requires some explanation. Like you can say yoga, and people have an idea of what that is, or you can say, you know, swimming or dance, or you know, but if you say reflex integration, people have no idea what that is, and it really does require an explanation. So I guess the simplest way to put it is, we're filling gaps in development, things that should have happened in development but did not. And usually when I say that, one say, or I might say something like, well, I teach movements that help the brain, the body and the sensory system mature. And people will often say, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that, crossing the midline and everything. And I just kind of laugh, because it's so much more than that. And then they'll say, no, no, I know what that is. It's like crawling around and stuff like crawling. Important, and I'd still laugh, because there's so much that goes on in the womb and early infancy, prior to any kind of crawling that is so foundational to our core strength, our balance, our emotional stability, our I mean, the foundation of any human skill you can think of lies within these reflexes. And the foundation of our sensory system and how it functions also lies within these reflex movements. So I guess that's my short explanation.
Jayson Davies
I'm sure it can go on much longer, but, yeah, no, I think that is a good a good starting point. So thank you with that. What are some of the most common reflexes that are frequently not integrated, that you see?
Sonia Story
Well, okay, so Moro reflex is a huge problem. The asymmetrical tonic neck reflex, the tonic lover and thin reflex, the symmetrical tonic neck reflex, head writing reflex. In fact, one of your listeners has taken my brain and sensory foundations courses, and she wrote me back because she knew I was going to be on your program. Make sure you tell all those school based OTs to learn about head writing, because often I just do a little bit with head writing, and it makes a huge difference for the children. And the teachers notice it. They notice it very quickly. So head writing is interesting because it's a postural reflex. It's not a primitive reflex, and it should be there, working for us, for our posture and our movement, after the primitive reflexes are established, but oftentimes that's not established, and it really interferes with functioning. So to give you an example of like, the depth of how important these movements are, if we go back to the moral reflex. And also, you know, I didn't list them all, but there are hand reflexes, feet reflexes, reflexes of the back, tactile reflexes that really have a lot to do with core strength. Yeah, need to ask me a question. Or,
Jayson Davies
well, I was just gonna say, I mean, like you were talking about earlier, you know, they don't teach us everything in school about reflexes, you know. And so all these reflexes that you're listing off, I've heard of, I've heard of, and at one point I knew exactly what they were, but there's some that you're saying that I don't even remember exactly what what they are. And so if you can just give an example of what a few of those ones that you listed, what does that look like?
Sonia Story
Okay, so let me tell you a story that Mary Kawar actually shared with me. So she because she even said, in her course, she said, I have a very comprehensive vestibular program. She said, I have a very comprehensive sensory program. And the kids I'm seeing are showing that they really need this reflex work. And so what she told the story of this little boy who every morning he would get ready for school, he'd hop in the car, and as soon as the seat belt got buckled in on him, he would unbuckle himself and run back into the house because he had to go to the bathroom. So that had to do with his final galot reflex, which is a tactile reflex. It's stimulated by tactile input to the back, and it's hugely important, because if it's not integrated, we don't have our proper hip movement, we will have weak back muscles that often get tense because of the weakness underlying and we have a tendency to be bed wetters or to have an immediate reaction through the bladder, and so he was getting stimulated as soon as he got buckled in. The other thing about when spinal gallon is not integrated, it is hugely important to the sensory system, because the back is super hyper sensitive, and these are the kids that wriggle around. They're not comfortable with anything around their waist. They're super fidgety, and trying to get them to sit still is almost impossible. So she talked about how she worked with the spinal gallon and he could finally go to school, you know, sit more still and be Bucha into a seatbelt. So it was kind of a funny story, but they just got on the, you know, they sat on the floor and played, and she showed like this, wriggling around, movement on the back and and it worked
Jayson Davies
well. Yeah, cool. So, and that kind of leads into what other aspects Do you see kids having difficulties in when reflexes aren't integrated? You obviously just talked about one right there. But what are some of the daily living activities that kids really struggle with?
Sonia Story
Well, let's go okay, so I love your question, and because these are really the foundation for function, let's talk about the foundations, because they affect all the functional activities. So for example, if you want a child to be able to do handwriting, the thing that occurs to all of us is, okay, let's practice handwriting, or, let's, you know, strengthen the hands. But if you have unintegrated reflexes, this was one thing that Dr Blomberg taught us, they always will interfere with muscle strength and muscle function and and stamina. So you cannot get full muscle function until that reflex is integrated. And because otherwise, if the if the reflex should have been integrated in infancy, which, when we're talking about a primitive reflex, of course, that means it should be dormant. But time, you know, infancy and toddlerhood is passed, yes, so that if it, if it has gotten all of its proper use, that reflex, it will grow all these pathways in the brain, the muscle function will be there, and then someone will be able to naturally learn the skills of handwriting With with a little practice, those kids who it's just so painful, and sometimes it's literally painful, but sometimes it's emotionally painful, so but they are struggling because their hand wants to do something completely different than it's being asked to do, and that's because The reflex is interfering not only with the movement, but the underlying muscles aren't properly developed for the ability to hold a pencil or pen with with ease and that that even goes for like our core strength so like Moral reflex, tonic, labyrinthine reflex. Those are so important to our core strength. So you'll see a lot of W sitting, you'll see poor balance, you'll see poor head control, and all of that relates to how our sensory system is functioning and how the sensory processing channels are functioning together or not. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
So when I think of reflex integration, obviously has that, that one of those keywords that we use in sensor or in sensory is that integration word. And so from your standpoint, do sensory integration and reflex integration, those models and treatments have similarities or they, or are they uniquely different? Or how do you view that?
Sonia Story
Okay, so you know so much of what I've learned Jayson is parents coming back and telling me, oh, here's what I've been doing, here's what I changed, here's what's working now. OTs coming back and saying, Wow, this is amazing. Here, you know, here's what I'm doing. So in addition to the reflexes, one, often the reflexes are more familiar to OTs, but there's another whole piece of this, which are the rhythmic movements. And these are innate movements that babies will do spontaneously along with the reflexes, as long as they are given the opportunity to move, as long as they're not stressed, and as long as they are healthy, they will go through all these rhythmic movements and reflexes in normal development. So we combine not only the reflexes, but the rhythmic movements and the developmental movements, the milestone movements, together, and that really fills in these gaps, because so the way I view the sensory system is that the reflexes if they're not and this is also something I learned, not only from OTs, that this was working so well for sensory But Dr Blomberg also taught us that when you have reflexes like the moral reflex, if that is not integrated, you will have sensory issues and and it you will not be able to resolve sensory issues fully until that's integrated. There's some reasons behind that. What the big one of the biggest ones is our brain stem processes sensory information. When our brain stem is not mature, it cannot do its job fully and well, one of its jobs is to you. Filter sensory input. Another one of its jobs is to relay sensory information up to the cortex, which it does through the reticular activating system. So if the brain, if the brain stem is not mature, and it won't be mature, if the reflexes aren't mature, it can't, like you cannot get full brainstem maturity if the reflexes aren't integrated, because the primitive reflexes are housed in the brainstem. So so the other thing is that when you have that moral reflex active that is a startle response, that is a response that generates cortisol and adrenaline or epinephrine, and when those neurotransmitters are excreted, because you you're basically it's a startle response. It's fight or flight. It's fight or flight. Exactly. So when that's going on, you are going to be more sensitive, because those neurotransmitters make us more sensitive, which is an adaptive response if we're in an emergency, like, we want to be more hyper vigilant, like, where's the threat coming from? What do I have to do? Do I have to fight or flee? So our nervous system and sensory systems are heightened with those neuro chemicals, and if they're going on all the time, this is what happened actually, with our daughter, because she had a traumatic birth, she never integrated her moral and but I didn't know. I mean, I actually took her. We took her to a pediatric physical therapist when she was 18 months, and he tested her on all kinds of things and said, well, she's either above or right at age level for where she should be. So we thought, okay, great, that's fine. And there was, like, you know, a little bit of hyper tone in her calf muscles. But other than that, we're like, Okay, it looks like we're good here, you know, yeah, we've been doing a lot of like, you know, she did. We did teach her how to nurse, which was a challenge at first, but in about 10 days, she was able to pick that up because she'd been in ICU for 12 days. But what we didn't realize, and what the pediatric physical therapist didn't realize, is there were all these underlying reflexes that weren't integrated, and Maura was one of them. So as she grew, you know, everybody just was like, Oh, she's so sensitive, so sensitive, you know, and, and she was Yeah, so her moral reflex never got integrated, and she just kept getting more and more and more sensitive, especially to, like, sudden loud noises that she wasn't expecting. Like she would just be like, you know, the gas and our arms would fly out, oh, no, the whole movement, yeah. And so it leaves, it leaves a dysfunction, because the brain can't mature properly. The sensory system can't mature properly. And the other thing when you don't have brain maturity is you cannot sit still, you literally, to whatever degree that is. And this was a big thing that Dr Blomberg taught us, but I saw it in my sessions. And I always tell this story, because it's so important. I asked a little boy once who was just talking non stop and bouncing off the walls in my session room, I asked him to lay down on my table so I could check his feet reflexes, and he laid down. Then immediately he got back up. So then I was able to do a little bit of rhythmic movement with his mom so he could watch. And then I did a little bit with him. No more than a minute, I could see he was slightly more grounded. And so I thought, Okay, I'm gonna ask him again. Can you please lay down on my table? It's just gonna be for a second. I just want to check it. He laid down. His eyes got really big, like he was afraid. And I said, I said, what's going on when you lay down? I said, What does it feel like? And he said, like, I'm gonna explode. Yeah. And this was a five year old, and he clearly knew I feel like I'm going to explode when you asked me to lay down still here on this table. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
that's a very intense response, yeah.
Sonia Story
And we'd been in the session long enough so that he knew he was safe. He knew I was not a threat. But you know, it was a new thing. It was the first session, but he came right out with it. He did not even hesitate. He said, feels like I'm going to explode. And I was like, Oh, this is what Dr Blomberg told us, that when the basal ganglia, which is a cap over the brain stem, when that's not mature, you can't sit still. It's like you're running, like a. OT or all the time, and to be asked to sit still is painful. It's not it's not going to work. And so what the reflexes do is they provide us with and the rhythmic movements as they provide us with the brain maturity and the sensory maturity, so that we can keep developing and do those functional tasks that we haven't been able to do, like, you know, button our buttons, or do handwriting, or even have our balance to walk with a normal gait. That serves us, because walking is also a developmental and rhythmic movement. It's just that it one. It's one that constantly should stay with us and constantly tune up our brain, as long as our gait and our balance are good.
Jayson Davies
Okay, so what you're talking about just prompted two questions. So I'm going to ask two separate ones. The Walking that you just talked about one of the things that we often ask parents is, did your did your son or daughter crawl? What do you make of that? When a parent says, oh, no, my son or daughter never called. They went straight to walking or, you know, scooting and all that good stuff, what do you make of that?
Sonia Story
Yeah, okay, so there, are two things. So when? So let's go to the scooting first. So any kind of scooting, asymmetrical Crawl, crawl that's like one leg out and one legs bending, or one leg doesn't bend, or one arm moves and the other one doesn't, or there's homolateral Instead of cross crawling. So any strange crawling or scooting or rolling to get around is problematic. It means that a step of normal development has been skipped and kids will or babies will unconsciously move into these alternate patterns of locomotion, and there's a reason why. And what I think the reason is, is because they've never been in prone enough. They should be in prone from the minute they're born, and they've never been in prone enough, and they haven't developed their reflexes. So they never got the core strength, which means they never got the head control, which means, as they grow, being in prone is going to be hard, and because they've never had the practice to begin with, and they don't have like their head feels too heavy for their body as they grow, and they never really developed. See so many of the reflexes have to do with developing our core and our neck muscles. So if those aren't developed, then your head just feels too heavy. So you're going to develop alternate patterns of crawling depending on you know, what was skipped and missed. So if, if someone says, My child skipped crawling and never went to walking. That's also problematic. So because crawling does so much for our brain development and our sensory development and our future gates, as you know and like, for our second child, she only crawled for a couple weeks, and then she was up in and walking at like, 10 months. And I think that was compensatory, knowing what I know now. I didn't, I didn't know it at the time, but neither of my children spent nearly enough time in prone if I had known I would have done that. But you know that that was a problem, and she was hyperactive. Oh my gosh, she was so hyperactive, and we really had to do a lot with these movements and give her a much better foundation.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. Yeah. So my second question that came up is you gave us a quick glimpse into what that initial treatment that you're talking about, or that evaluation, if you want to kind of call that with that little five year old. But going forward, what does your treatment tend to look like? Are you giving parents different activities to do at home? Are you seeing a kid every week? What does that look like?
Sonia Story
Well, for me, because I'm not an OT I don't have the ability to see children every week, so And parents often come to me from long distances. So I often will see a child maybe once a month, maybe once every two months. So I'm giving a pretty detailed home movement program, and I'm also recommending that parents take my course, because when they do that and the private sessions, we get the best results, because the parents go, Oh, I get now. Why this is so important. I. Used to just give private sessions without parents having to take the course. And now I'm requiring it, because I found that the we'd get by far the best results when we did the combination and and parents, honestly, the best results come when the parents are also doing the movements, because they're so good for de stress. And you know, children will unconsciously model their nervous system off of what they're seeing in their parents. And parents often, especially when they're stressed and exhausted, they often have unintegrated reflexes too, and so that's when we get the best results. So I for OTs, who are seeing children once a week, I still think it's really important that the parents are doing things at home, at least the rhythmic movements. The joy of the rhythmic movements is that they're so simple, they're incredibly effective. I mean, when you see how simple they are, you just go, that can't be doing anything, but they are so good, parents can do them easily, and it's a way of having an enjoyable bonding activity with their children. And they only need to do like, five or 10 minutes, and you'll see, you'll see great results. So I know for school based OTs that it is more challenging to get parents on board, but I do recommend it if you have the opportunity, and also if you don't, if you really don't, then even seeing a child once a week for 30 minutes can give good results.
Jayson Davies
Okay, so in that sense, some of the OTs obviously, you're not a school based ot What have you heard, as far as feedback from school based OTs that are using your brain and sensory foundations, type of program within the school? What are they saying? What do they do when they see that kid for 30 minutes a week?
Sonia Story
Yeah. Well, so I am doing my best to emphasize to OTs, who only have a limited amount of time to really focus on these movements, because they they are the most. They're going to give you the most for the amount of time you're spending. As far as I know, I don't know any other movements that can do what these do as fast as they do it. Because if you again, like, if you start off on functional tasks, and there's an underlying weakness, or underlying foundational challenge there, then you can, you may be developing what, what I learned this term from OTs Splinter skills, and so they can do something while you're right there telling them what to do, But then it doesn't carry over. Or they can do something for a little bit, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't carry over. I'll give you an example. This is a story that a speech pathologist told me so she was working with this little boy who had a lisp, and he could not speak without the lisp unless she was right there, like sort of reminding him, but then it would always come back. And within two weeks of doing these rhythmic movements, his mom said he woke up and did not have the lisp. Wow. So that's I mean being able to speak is a very functional activity, right? Absolutely it. It absolutely depends on a sensory motor foundation. But one of the beautiful things about the rhythmic movements is that they mature the brain stem. And one of the other functions of the brain stem is it controls muscle tone. So that's fascinating, when you think about it, and we need our muscles for every functional activity, absolutely? Yeah, of course. So these simple, rhythmic movements that really don't look like they're doing anything have the power to mature the brain stem, and that's just what they do in development. And when the brain stem is mature, we have all kinds of other functioning. We even have the ability to pay attention much better, because the brain stem sends it's got that pathway from the reticular activating system to the cortex, and so does the cerebellum, by the way, so smooth, rhythmic movement stimulates the cerebellum, so that also is maturing, and then that takes the the pathways start developing, from the brain stem and cerebellum to the cortex. Once those pathways are developed, we have our ability to. To pay attention and focus. So one of the things that Dr Blomberg often teaches about is how these movements can be used to overcome the symptoms of ADHD. And that's kind of I gave you a little snapshot of why they work. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
OT So, and I don't want to go too far into this, because I know this is partially, you know, really what your course is about. But are these, you're you keep referring to these rhythmic movements. Are we doing? Is this kind of a progression, like, you know what, no matter what your area of concern is, you want to start with this specific movement, or is it really based upon what the concern is. So, like you mentioned, a speech concern is a speech concern a kid with a speech concern doing different movements than a kid with that bladder concern you were talking about earlier,
Sonia Story
right? So, because there are so many challenges with children today, you can really go through and just integrate all the reflexes, and you would be doing them a world of good, gotcha, even if you did, even if you knew nothing about assessment. I do teach assessment in my course, but most of the focus is on actual tools, like practical, experiential tools to use. But even parents, or anyone who's doing assessment, you could kids are so different in how they come out in these assessments, especially school age kids, because they're already they've already been compensating for a number of years, and because they've already been compensating, you might not see the reflex like a textbook briefly. You know what I mean? Might learn Okay, here's how I check for it. Here's what are the possible responses. But some kids have literally locked down their muscles because it's so uncomfortable living without integrated reflexes so their body learns to compensate, and there are all different ways of compensation. So even if you just went through and did a foundational program and made sure you did all the innate rhythmic movements that you know and all the reflexes that you know, you would be hugely helping that individual. So now that being said, you can absolutely target things, like, if you know how to assess and or even if you don't, if you can just, like, look at the list of symptoms that typically happen with each reflex, so you can determine, like, Okay, it looks to me, like for this child, these three reflexes are really impacting him the most, and then you would focus on those along with rhythmic movements, because the rhythmic movements are absolutely key and foundational. I feel I've just seen that over and over again, and that actually surprised me, because I learned about reflexes before I learned rhythmic movements. And so when I went to the rhythmic movement training course with Dr Blomberg and Moira Dempsey, that course was a combination of rhythmic movements and reflexes. And I went because I knew the reflexes were really important, and I was like, Oh yeah, these rhythmic movements are nice. They're, they're, oh, I got somebody outside blowing weeds. I hear blowing down yet. So anyway, where were we? So I was saying that in my first rhythmic movement training course, Dr wamber told us that, you know, these rhythmic movements are really powerful to mature the brain in the sensory system, and especially the brain stem and the cerebellum. And I was like, yeah, they're nice, they're really sweet, and they're they're really relaxing and everything. But tell me about these reflexes. I want to learn more about these reflexes, because I knew they were so important, but I had no idea how powerful and important the rhythmic movements are until parents and OTs started coming back to me saying, This is amazing. I can't believe it, like you're just doing this simple rhythmic movement, and all of a sudden, this kid, who's nine years old, who could never ride his bike because he didn't have good balance, he just hopped on his bike and started going. And I'm like, what I can't, you know, it was amazing, and it's because the rhythmic movements are very maturing, but they also help reflexes to integrate, and it just makes sense. That's why we have them in our development. They're like a perfect system together, and so I do always recommend those rhythmic movements, because they are they're like golden to do, and they don't take a long time to do, and you don't need any special equipment, and parents can learn them, and they help children sleep. They're amazing,
Jayson Davies
all right. Right? Well, I know that's, that's part of your course. And so we're going to continue to go on, and eventually we'll kind of get to that. So I have something I want to ask you, actually, and that is that I have a high schooler who, you know, he's in a severe, profound class. He does have autism and but he really kind of has that that rooting or that sucking reflects a lot, and he just randomly in class will look over at him, and, you know, he's pretty functional. He He has difficulty with academics, but as far as socially, you know, he can, he can socialize pretty well with with same age peers, but it's really those academics, and, you know, writing a lot of difficulty. So what might you start off with? Then, for this, he's a 10th grader, I believe, and he's really presenting with the the sucking reflex. Okay, I know that's not a lot to go off of, but,
Sonia Story
yeah, so um, I what I would actually do is I would start with the hands, because in infancy, the hands and the mouth are connected. And I've had PTS coming back and saying, Wow, I did these hand reflex movements, and this kid stopped drooling, or I did these hand reflex movements, and this kid can hold his tongue in his mouth for the first time. And it also has a relationship to speech and obviously, handwriting. So I would start with hand reflexes. You can actually press your thumb right in the middle of the palm, and then have them squeeze around your thumb like make a fist, and just grasp and Squeeze and hold for a few seconds. That's kind of a really easy thing to do. Just press the middle of the palm and stimulate it. Then keep your thumb in there. And you don't have to press hard, just a little light press and then have him squeeze and have him do that. You know, several times a day. You can even do it for himself, so that will help with sort of compulsive mouth movements. But then with sucking, it would probably be really good to work with the hands and the suck reflex. So we've got, you know, a whole big protocol, but what I could, and that's in the second level. The sucking and rooting are in the second level, course, but very simply, you could, you know, if he'll allow it, you could take a little like paint brush and just sort of stimulate around the lips a little bit. And then, does he have rooting, also rooting and sucking? Probably, probably, yeah. So you could stimulate around the lips for sucking, and then you could kind of stimulate and make, sort of like, like, if you were painting cat whiskers on for rooting, no, like, back and forth, and have him turn his head. And you could have him like, suck water through a crazy straw. Those crazy straws are really thin, so you have to suck hard. You know, it's challenging, because sucking, you know, you really want the tongue pressing on the roof of the mouth and and a lot of kids don't even have proper tongue posture, and, you know, they have problems with mouth breathing. And it gets really that those things are more challenging to to work with, you know, and there are all kinds of dental devices and things like that, but at least initially, you could do some simple things for him to help with his rooting and sucking. And the main thing is, is, you know, you can stimulate the reflex and then go into movement pattern as best you can.
Jayson Davies
Mm, hmm, all right, wow, that's actually helpful. I know I'm I'm interested now, so yeah,
Sonia Story
and if he likes applesauce, you can have a regular sized straw and have them suck apple sauce up the straw. Oh,
Jayson Davies
wow, to even thicken it up a little bit more. And yeah,
Sonia Story
but don't do that with a crazy straw. Crazy. Only water,
Jayson Davies
the too thin. Yum. Yeah. All right. So like you mentioned earlier, the OTs, want to know about the research. We are obviously very big research space, and so is there any research that you can either briefly kind of share off the top of your head, or somewhere where we can go and get more research on this.
Sonia Story
Yes, if you go to my website, move, play, thrive.com, forward slash research, you'll see I've got research and compiled there, and I've also written about the relevance and evidence base and on the rationale for ot practice. So that's and it applies to PT practice as well. And that is, that's up there. I want to expand it more, because I keep finding more research. Another great book that's a compilation by Elizabeth Torres, and I think it's Carolyn Wyatt, they're the editors, but it's a compilation of research, and it's called Autism, the movement sensing perspective, and it's great because they're talking about how movement and sensory processing challenges are a core characteristic of what we call autism. And actually, this is kind of heartbreaking to me. It's so frustrating, because if we only knew that we could help children so much earlier, because you can tell very early on, if you know what to look for with movement and reflexes, you can tell if a child needs help very early, like when they're babies. And so to characterize autism as just you know, a social language and behavioral to characterize it that way is so it's really wrong and it it doesn't help us as far as how to work with it in ways that are more productive. So, you know, it's quite a complicated illness, and it's so much more than just what it's characterized as. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
gotcha. I want to ask you a question. Then, have you ever worked with a school directly to facilitate some sort of rhythmic program within the school? Have you ever done that, or thought about doing that? Or know someone who maybe has?
Sonia Story
I know some, some souls who have done that, and it's been very successful. I have not done that myself. Boy, I would love to do that. Yeah, because
Jayson Davies
I know brain gym, they do a lot of trainings for teachers and stuff like that, and I know they do different types of rhythmic movements. I don't know if they're the same as yours, but they often will have trainings for kindergarten teachers, special education teachers and stuff like that. But
Sonia Story
rhythmic movements are not the same we're doing rhythmic movements that are the innate rhythmic movements that babies do, gotcha. But, yeah, I mean, to get this into schools would be ideal, because it's not only the kids that you're seeing in your practice. All the kids have on integrated reflexes I have yet to see. I mean, I would say it's in the high 90% now, that doesn't mean that all of them are as severe, because they're not there's a huge range of being unintegrated on a mild in mild to way more severe. There's a big, huge range. But all can benefit. So like, if the OTs could get together with the PE teachers and start giving these movements to kids, it would absolutely change everything for those kids and for the school, everybody would be functioning so much better.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I love that you that you bring that up, actually, because I haven't had the chance to do it in my new job. But at my old job, I was really close to one of the ape teachers, and I did work closely with him on not necessarily. I wasn't trained. I'm still not trained. And, you know, all the the items that you're talking about here today, but a little bit in the sensory integration aspect, I would talk to him about, you know, different types of crossing midline activities and and we work on those different balancing, you know, different types of stuff. And it was fantastic because now the kids are, you know, they're getting ot once a week, and they're getting a pee once a week or more, and they're just getting so much more of that information that so much more of those movements and all that good stuff. So highly recommend collaboration among all service providers. You know, if you're in an IEP team, we really need to be working together with all team members and educating everyone.
Sonia Story
Yeah, that's fantastic, yeah, and that i It's so exciting to think like, what could be done. But I'll just tell you a story about my friend Nina, who is in Ashland, and she has a program where they find the children who are coming to their school, it's a private school, and the ones that are having trouble reading and who also have sensory issues, she has them doing movement four days a week, and they are within two years, all of those kids who are markedly special needs. As far as reading goes, they're reading at grade level in two years, and some of them within a year. And some of them, the teachers in the classroom are coming back and saying, these kids are reading better than my kids. Oh, wow. So yeah. And also, Steven Kane is a school well, he's retired now. Yeah, but he took this course and he applied it, and he actually wanted to teach it, so he and I ended up spending a lot of time on the phone together, talking about everything we'd been learning and seeing. And he's the one. He was one of the ones that said, Look, I took this work to the OT or to the PE teacher at my school, and we're seeing all these kids who are neurotypical, who, you know, can't do some of this basic stuff because their reflexes are also on integrated. And that started to really open my eyes up. And I started asking around people who had access to whole classrooms of kids, and if you you can test neuro typical kids who are working at grade level, and you can clearly see that they're struggling with on integrated reflexes, maybe not to the same degree, but yeah, so I hope I'm answering your questions.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, no, definitely and no, what you're saying is spot on, because I had an interview not too long ago. It's already on the podcast with Sherry daughter, and she's a dysgraphia consultant, and she was saying, you know, 33% of kids have some sort of dysgraphia, and of those, 33% of kids only nine or nine out of 10 are not even being treated because they don't have, to the extent that they're in special education, and so you're absolutely right. You know, there are many kids out there that do have difficulties that just kind of, I don't want to say undiagnosed, because it's probably not necessarily a diagnosis that they need, but they're not getting treated in the way, because, for the most part, they're pretty functional. But there's a few things that, like you said, they probably, they're probably compensating for, and they've learned to compensate for, so.
Sonia Story
Absolutely, way more stress than they should. Yes, things end up being a lot more difficult for them. And then, as you know, as the coursework gets harder and harder as they move through the grades. It's, it's, it gets more and more stressful,
Jayson Davies
absolutely. So obviously, you are very informed in this topic. I've really appreciated having you on today. I've learned a lot, and I want to learn more. And I'm sure other people out there listening also want to learn more. So I want to give you the opportunity to share a little bit about your website, move playthrive.com, and what you've mentioned a few things already, but what do you have over there?
Sonia Story
Oh my gosh. Well, my favorite part is the case studies. So you'll see in the case studies, just there's one after another after another, of just huge transformations, and it's they're very inspiring. Some of them are longer, but most of them are really brief and easy to read, and they're fantastic. So I would say read the case studies. So just go to move playthrive.com and you'll see the case studies tab right there. And there are two pages of case studies, and they each have, like, a picture and a caption. They're so much fun to read. There's also a lot of research and many articles on the in the Learn More section. And then, of course, we have courses available, so I highly recommend the brain and sensory foundations courses, those are really so worth your while, and they're so packed with information and practical tools that you can use?
Jayson Davies
if I remember right, you are a OTA approved for continuing education on those.
Sonia Story
Yes, yeah, I finally, after years of OTs saying, Can I get CEUs? I finally did all that, all the paperwork. Yeah, I did all the work. So the courses are approved for a ot a CEUs, and the first level course is also approved for PTS through the Federation of State Board of PT, they don't call it CEUs. They call it continuing competency unit. So they call it CCUS. Those are in place for the first level course, and I'm hoping this year, if all goes well, that I can get my application in for the second level course, because that one's great also and but that's in place for OTs and then for pts. I still because for OTs, you just like you have, your whole company gets approved or not. They do it course by course. Gotcha to do it for the second level course that's on my list. All
Jayson Davies
right, great. Well, thank you for sharing all that information. That's brilliant, and I can't wait for people to learn more about it. You mentioned your website. Is there any other social media accounts or email that you'd like to share if people want to get a hold
Sonia Story
of you? Yeah, I am on I have great article. And research and tips and fun stories and things like that on Facebook. So Facebook is just facebook.com, forward slash, move, play, thrive. And my it's easy to contact me through my website and what else. So also, I think for your listeners, we're going to come up with some kind of discount code for them. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So we'll do that, and I'll give you links and things like that to different articles and things that are some of the ones that I love to share at the beginning. And I can give you links to articles that you know, your ot listeners can also share with parents, oh, because they have great visuals, so that parents can also understand, you know, why this is important?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that would be perfect. We're always looking for a little handout so we can keep on hand to give out at IEPs and stuff like that. So that'd be perfect. Great. Well, thank you, and we will definitely put all those resources up on the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash, Episode 32 but yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate having you on. And I can't, I really want to stay in touch. And like you said, we'll have to come visit when we're up there sometime and and, yeah, see how things are going. Yeah, thank you. And have a wonderful rest of your Saturday and take care. Thank you. Jayson, thank you. All right. Well, that does it for episode 32 of the OT school house podcast. I hope you enjoyed hearing from Sonia story all about primitive reflexes and reflex integration. And definitely be sure to check out the resources at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash, Episode 32 Sonia did provide me with some some slides that kind of go along with this show, as well as a free handout and a discount on the show for people who get on over there this June of 2019 so have a good one. Take care. We'll see you next time bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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