The Importance of Reflex Integration

By Sonia Story

Integrating reflexes is key for the ability to learn easily, manage our emotions and impulses, and meet life’s challenges with greater ease. Incomplete integration of childhood reflexes can be mild to severe, and is associated with:

• Anxiety
• ADHD
• Autism
• Learning challenges
• Developmental delay
• Sensory processing disorders
• Visual skills deficits
• Behavioral challenges
• Mental health challenges

Neurodevelopmental Movements—including innate rhythmic movements and primitive reflex integration movements—help children and adults transform challenges and thrive.

What is a primitive reflex?

A reflex is an automatic, instinctual movement that assists in development, growth, and survival. Blinking is a reflex. Many reflexes are active throughout our lives. Other reflexes—called “primitive reflexes”—surface in the womb and infancy and are designed to become inactive in the first year or two of life. Two familiar primitive reflexes are sucking and grasping with the hand. Ideally, primitive reflexes merge into more sophisticated movements and become integrated. An integrated childhood reflex is no longer active.

What causes unintegrated or retained primitive reflexes?

While we do not know for sure what can cause unintegrated, active, or retained primitive reflexes, they may be be caused by anything that interferes with infant development or that results in neurodevelopmental delays. Harald Blomberg, MD suspected the following as possible contributing factors realated to retained primitive reflexes.

• Lack of enough proper movement in early childhood.
• Lack of time in prone (on the belly).
• Restriction of movement in infancy. Swaddling, plastic carriers, propping devices, playpens, walkers, swings, jumpers, and car seats all restrict movements required for brain development. Too much time in front of electronic screens can also hamper opportunities for movement.
• Stress of the mother during pregnancy, birth trauma, Caesarean birth, prenatal and perinatal complications.
• Illness, trauma, injury, chronic stress.
• Environmental toxins and plastics (endocrine disruptors), heavy metal exposure, exposure to electronic radiation (including Ultrasound).
• Food sensitivities.

 Even reflexes that are completely integrated may become reactivated later by trauma, injury, illness, exhaustion, toxic exposures, or stress.

Why are reflexes important?

Along with other innate infant movements, the primitive reflex movements literally grow the brain. Repetitive, automatic primitive reflex movements are essential for the development of balance, mobility, vision, hearing, speaking, learning, and communicating.

• Reflex movements are the first foundations of the nervous system. Like a block tower, all further development depends on the readiness of the foundation.
• Reflexes originate in the brain stem, or survival brain. When reflexes remain active, the survival brain is constantly stimulated and higher levels of the brain are not fully accessible. In this survival mode, there is less ability to access the prefrontal lobes, where we think, create, communicate, and make beneficial decisions. In other words, we are more likely to react instead of controlling our impulses.
• Unintegrated reflexes trigger the “fight or flight” response, creating chronic stress. Even when there is no logical reason for stress, we can feel stressed because our physiology is constantly reacting as if threatened. Stress becomes a habit, often below the level of our awareness.
• When reflexes are active, body parts cannot easily move independently. A movement of the head causes an automatic movement in the limbs, hands, or feet. Extra limb movements happen below the surface level and cause confusion in the neuro-sensory-motor system. This confusion creates difficulties with growth, coordination, reading, writing, speaking, and thinking. A child who fidgets and cannot focus is more than likely suffering from active reflexes. Once reflexes are integrated, the brain and sensory systems become more mature and head and limb muscle groups can move independently.  At this point, the ability to sit attentively without fidgeting comes easily.

• Active reflexes cause aches and muscle tension, weak muscles, fatigue, and the need for great amounts of effort to complete tasks. We unconsciously learn to compensate for and suppress active reflexes, which can cause considerable tension and drain energy. Skills that should be automatic (like reading and writing) can be done only with continuous conscious effort. The developmental hierarchy shown here shows how the early infant reflexes are a vital foundation for higher level sensory, motor, learning, and communication skills.

Movement and play for integration

At any age, we can integrate the reflexes and rebuild the foundation of our nervous system through neurodevelopmental movements. We start by using the innate rhythmic movements and assessing which reflexes need integration. Then we do a series of age-appropriate activities specifically designed for each reflex. Neurodevelopmental movements are highly effective because they tap into the same system we are designed with at birth for reflex integration and brain development. We add play, because play is fun, healing, transformative, and important for development.

Neurodevelopmental movements are beneficial for all ages and skill levels. They are effective for reflex integration, learning, optimizing skills, reducing stress, eliminating blocks, and opening the heart. Families especially benefit from the harmony and positive changes that grow from doing movements together.