Primitive Reflex Integration Case Studies

Primitive reflex integration tools foster calm when learning new skills

Physical Therapist helps 7-year-old girl to integrate her Moro Reflex using play and reflex integration techniques from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course.

Submitted by Shayna Hansberry, Physical Therapist

 
My daughter, Isabelle, is an extremely happy and healthy 7-year-old girl. She really enjoys playing piano but can get very upset if she has difficulty learning a new song. I’ve previously worked with her to take breaks to calm down, tried to rationalize that “everything is ok, it’s ok to make mistakes” etc. But when she gets upset, she is very sad and puts extra pressure on herself. One day, Isabelle was very frustrated learning a new piano piece. She told me she was frustrated that she couldn’t learn one part of a new song and she started crying. Instead of telling her that it’s normal to make mistakes like I usually do, I asked her how she pictured herself if she could play it and she said “I see myself playing it and smiling and I’m happy.” She is young so I didn’t ask her to state a goal but just asked her to picture what it would be like for her.

I asked her to pretend she’s doing that. She sat down at a chair and pretended to play the piano and smiled.

Then, I asked her to play a quick game with me. She agreed to do so and I asked her to “shake on it” to agree to the game (my way of stimulating the Moro reflex [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course] in a non-threatening way since she was already upset). We did the puppet march looking down for 30 seconds, then attempted the cross crawl looking up. She had a difficult time with this initially so I had her lie down and passively moved her limbs (after asking if it was OK). I asked her to hum and she started giggling but she did it. We then did the integration part [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course]. I gave her a sip of water and asked her again what it looked like if she could play it and she repeated that she would be smiling and happy.

She sat down and pretended to play the piano with a big smile on her face. Then she turned the keyboard back on and continued to practice piano.

A few days later, Isabelle again became upset practicing the piano. I asked her if we could play the game again and she said yes. I asked her to picture how it would look like if she could play the piece and this time, she pictured playing it in front of her friend and her friend got up and started dancing while she played. I asked her to act it out and she took the role of both herself playing and then got up and danced like she pictured her friend doing.

Again, we shook hands to start the beginning of our “game” and we started the puppet march and tried the cross crawl. This time she had a difficult time doing it standing but I asked what she thought about trying it sitting down. She tried it and was able to do that without much difficulty. We finished up with integration and then she pretended to play and danced the part of her friend again. She went back to practicing the piano and, in that session, she mastered the difficult piece.

A few weeks went by and she did not get frustrated with the piano. After about 2 and ½ weeks, the next time she got frustrated, she asked ME if we could play the game. She came up with her own picture/goal (this time she was playing the piano and her piano teacher was clapping for her). After acting it out she came over to me to shake my hand and then we did the puppet march. This time, she was able to do the cross crawl in standing. We did integration, drank some water and she sat down to act out her “vision” of herself again.

Another 3-4 weeks went by before her next upset, which was the longest she has gone without getting frustrated playing piano. She came to find me and asked to play our game again. We went on as before, and this time when we got towards the end I asked if she wanted to play a little bit more and she said she did, so I added the spinning cross crawl at the end of the support re-patterning sequence [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course]. She loved it and started laughing really hard while spinning. It took several more days of practicing off and on until she got fully comfortable with that particular piece of music but she did not get frustrated and kept practicing until she mastered the part that was difficult for her.

The most exciting thing to see during this whole process was her frustration and self-doubt go away, and her ability to recognize that there was something she could do for herself when she was feeling overwhelmed. I feel like it went from a passive activity of me trying to reason with her and tell her it's not a big deal (which was apparently not helpful for her anyway) to an empowering experience that she could initiate in a way that made her goals feel attainable and feel like we were doing something positive together. Overall, over the four sessions we spent no more than 40 minutes combined. It was a lot more effective than how I previously had handled the piano frustrations, which in my mind weren’t a big deal (I’ve never pushed her at the piano and only wanted her to have fun) but in her mind were very troubling. It also taught me to try harder to recognize and incorporate her feelings about her experiences instead of trying to impose my own beliefs about her experiences, which were kindly meant on my part but ineffective.

[Edited for length and clarity, emphasis added]