Primitive Reflex Integration Case Studies

Submitted by W.S., OTR/L

My daughter Grace is an 11 year old girl who was adopted internationally at age 4 years 4 months.  She lived in an orphanage from the age 18 months until her adoption. Generally Grace was and is a happy child, especially when she feels safe and loved. She is sensitive, perceptive and very creative; however the complex trauma she experienced had some lasting effects on her well-being and behavior such as frequent somatic complaints, tactile defensiveness in the form of being extremely ticklish (any light touch to arms, legs, back, neck, palms), difficulty regulating voice volume, excessive talking and distractibility in the classroom at school, lack of self-confidence, and being easily shamed which led to withdrawal of eye contact, hiding in her room, and tearfulness even when corrected for small mistakes. Grace also was anxious of being left alone even for a short time and demonstrated a lot of fear. 

Some of Grace’s previous fears had already been addressed using various methods such as cognitive-behavioral techniques, sensory processing strategies/activities, and very structured gradual exposure at Grace’s pace to events and animals (anything uncaged) that triggered her fight, flight, fear response. As we have worked through her trauma using other methods we had seen some gradual growth in self-confidence and reduction of shame, but these things were still triggered by careless words or actions by teachers and other adults and even peers.  For example, a simple correction from her grandfather led her to the conclusion that, “Grandpa doesn’t like me,” and when distractability and talking in class led to a number of days in the yellow and orange zones on the classroom behavior chart in her classroom last year she was saying, “I am a bad kid.”, “I can’t do anything right.”, and other negative statements; having emotional meltdowns at home; and experiencing anxiety about going to school which had never been a problem for her. It was rapidly eroding the self-esteem we had worked so diligently to build over the years. (I tried to get the teacher to get rid of the behavior chart which was a no go, but I did get her to remove Grace’s name from it and deal with her privately.)

I began working with Grace using the rhythmic movements [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course] approximately 9 months ago, soon after the trauma that was triggered by the behavior chart. Initially we did just the rhythmic movements a couple of times a week for several months. Right away, Grace enjoyed the movements and she would ask me to do them.  She enjoyed the close contact and her relaxation during the movements was obvious.  During the first 1-2 months, I had to carefully think about the pressure of my contact with her and where I placed my hands in order to avoid light touch and triggering her tactile defensive responses.  Within a few weeks, I noticed Grace was no longer making negative statements about herself.  The anxiety that had arisen about going to school was also gone and she was once again looking forward to going every day. I also did not have to be so careful about where I placed my hands as her ticklishness was not quite as prominent. 

After a couple of months of just doing the rhythmic movements I added more activities [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course] for integration of the fear paralysis and moro reflexes due to the withdrawal, fear, anxiety and somatic complaints that I still observed with Grace.  We continued the activities 2-3 times a week for the rest of the school year (including the COVID-19 school closure) until mid-May.  

Grace has made some wonderful changes and social emotional growth.  Whereas before she expressed fears about growing up (often telling me she wanted not want to get older and she wanted to be 4 years old), I suddenly seem to have a child that is laying out her whole future talking about where she wants to live, going to college, how many kids she wants to have, what kind of jobs she wants to have, etc.  

Grace, who did not want to be left alone in the house even for a few minutes, told me a few months ago that she could stay home when I took our dogs for a walk, and I have since been able to leave her for short times to run an errand or two. 

I have also noticed in the last few months that Grace is not withdrawing or getting tearful nearly so often when corrected, and rather than fear and compliance I am getting some back-talking and occasional arguing which I see as more developmentally appropriate and a stage that she needs to go through. 

Some other things I observe with Grace are that her somatic complaints are rare, and she is regulating her voice volume more often without me having to say something.  There are some things we are still working on, but I have loved seeing her growth in self-esteem and self-confidence as her anxiety and fears have diminished.  

Doing these rhythmic movements, reflex integration and 5-step balance activities [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course] with Grace has shown me how powerful these can be in helping an individual overcome effects of complex trauma so that they can eradicate fears and benefit from social-emotional learning experiences so that they can express themselves in ways that would be typical for their age. 

[Edited for length and clarity; emphasis added]