7 Strategies to Accomplish Positive Compliance with Retained Primitive Reflex Integration

This post contains information about how to help kids with retained Primitive Reflexes maintain positive compliance when working toward integration. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

One of the most difficult parts of reflex integration is keeping a child motivated and maintaining positive compliance. When working with children to integrate retained reflexes, many of the movements and exercises are repetitive. In the beginning, kids may find the movements fun and exciting because they are new. However, slowly overtime, the child may get tired, bored or frustrated that the exercises are hard or repetitive.

Staying positive and keeping the child motivated to continue working through each retained reflex may be tough on parents, therapists and the kids. But there are some alternatives to maintain positive compliance and to work through slumps that may happen weeks or even months after you begin integration.

Even when the child struggles to keep going, it’s important to remain consistent and to continue holding regular sessions. Successful integration is dependent on frequency and duration until the child’s body and brain is ready to move forward.

Positive Compliance Tips and Tricks

There are several ways to help kids push forward when working on reflex integration without it ending in fights, anger or frustration. When trying these tips and tricks below, keep in mind the following:

Alter and adjust based on the child’s individual needs because each situation is different.
Keep in mind the child’s age and ability when working on reflex exercises.
Maintain slow and purposeful movement to help integrate the reflexes quicker.
Help position or hold the child’s limbs in place when needed to establish control over the movement until they are strong enough to do it on their own.
Make and keep a weekly scheduled time and routine so the child is mentally, physically and emotionally prepared each time you work on reflex integration.

If you do become frustrated when working with the child, step away for a few minutes or take a few deep breaths to regain composure and self-awareness before trying again.

Strategy 1: Break-up the Exercises

Children with retained Primitive Reflexes often struggle with poor muscle tone and lack coordination skills. This makes the exercises even harder for children when they begin. If the child struggles in these areas, or if the child is younger, break-up the movement of each exercise.

To maintain positive compliance and motivation, you may need to start with legs only or arms only at first. Depending on how strongly the reflex is retained, you may have to add on additional movements slowly and it could take extra time before they have the full and complete exercise down. This may also keep you on one exercise longer before you can move forward to another exercise or reflex.

As you break down the movements, keep in mind the following:

Doing the reflex exercises in pieces may cause the reflexes to integrate slower (and that is ok).
Help the child focus on their breathing as part of the integration process.
Adding on to the exercise once they have successfully mastered the first part of the movement helps make the exercise feel new and different to the child.

Strategy 2: Positive Feedback and Praise

One of the biggest motivators for children, especially those who struggle with retained reflexes, is positive feedback and praise. No matter how hard the exercises get, kids need to hear about the progress they make and how far they have come. Helping them work through any discouragement that may arise, motivates them to keep going and builds their self-confidence.

Positive feedback and praise will help the child feel good about the hard work they have done and can motivate them to continue. Provide positive praise when the child does any of the following:

Controls the movement and completes it slowly.
Reaches an important milestone with the exercise (even when adding a piece on).
Understands and knows how to regulate their breathing when doing the exercise.
Holds the exercise for longer than they did the previous time.
Can do the exercise without the help from an adult.

You can also give the child “points” for any part of the exercise that is completed correctly.

Strategy 3: Add other Exercises to the Child’s Sessions

Because reflex integration is repetitive, positive compliance becomes difficult quickly. Adding on additional brain-building exercises and activities into the child’s session or reflex routine breaks-up the monotony.

As you add on other activities, keep in mind the following:

Add activities that target the reflexes (i.e., midline crossing, core strength, eye-hand coordination, timing/rhythm, eye tracking, etc.).
Alternate additional activities with reflex integration exercises.
Keep reflex integration exercises the same each week, but trade out other activities each session to break-up the boredom.
Stick to a 30-minute session with the child as they may get too tired or frustrated.

Many of these add-on activities will encourage and even aid your efforts in reflex integration. It may even help the reflexes integrate faster and more efficiently.

Strategy 4: Add Toys and Manipulatives to the Exercises or Sessions

This is one of the most important strategies you can do to help maintain positive compliance when doing integration exercises. Using toys or manipulatives when doing activities creates excitement and gives the feeling of “play” rather than “work.”

You can add toys or manipulatives to the reflex exercises, however, if they start to interfere with their mobility and progress, you’ll want to remove them from these specific movements. Even if you can’t use certain tools during the reflex exercises, you can use as many as you want with the other activities you add-on.

Some of the tools and manipulatives to help the kids stay motivated when doing the movements can include many of the following:

Strategy 5: Rewards, Goals and Sticker Charts

This strategy may seem like a no-brainer, but it works really well for certain children who need structure and something tangible to see their progress with their own eyes.

Rewards

Allowing the child to pick some type of reward at the end of their session can be a great motivator and can even help them to keep going if they become distracted during their session. Knowing they are working toward a small toy out of the treasure chest or a treat (sugar-free candy) at the end can help maintain focus and structure throughout the session.

Goals

Working toward a larger goal can help you and the child maintain positive compliance. You can even tie the goal to a prize or reward once they have reached their milestone. As you set goals with the child and the parent, you can try any of the following:

Tie the goal to the child getting the full movement of one reflex exercise.
Tie the achievement to practice goals they can do at home outside of their weekly sessions.
Tie the goal to a timeframe and if they can reach their milestone within a specific period of time.

Remember to adjust and alter the goal to the specific child, their unique circumstances and skillset.

Sticker Charts

Creating a sticker chart can help the child visually see how far they have come and know where they are headed. Many times, a child forgets how hard it was for them to do the exercise in the beginning. Charts are a great visual reminder to show the child how far they have come and what they have accomplished. You can also tie the sticker chart to a reward at the end when they reach their goal.

Strategy 6: Invite a Friend or Make it a Competition

There are some students who are highly motivated by their competitive spirit, which makes it easier to keep their motivation and interest peaked. To make this strategy successful, you can do the exercises one of two ways.

Invite a friend or sibling to do the exercises with the child.
Have the child compete against you to “win” the exercise competition.

Friends and siblings can help the child stick with the exercises to the end of the session. It can also help the child see other children doing the exercises so they don’t feel alone. If the child has a friend or sibling participate in the exercises with them, keep in mind the following:

Make sure each child gets points for doing the exercise. The child with retained reflexes may find it harder than their sibling so it’s important for them to get some “wins” too.
If a friend or sibling becomes a greater distraction for the child, you may have to remove them from doing the exercises.
Help the child mirror the friend or sibling’s movement if they are struggling.

If a friend or sibling isn’t possible to include in the exercises, you can compete against the child yourself if they thrive off of competition. Competing with the child yourself can help them get into position quicker and can give them the opportunity to earn “points” against you. When participating in a friendly competition with your child or student, keep in mind the following:

See who can do the movement the slowest rather than the fastest.
See who can hold their breath for the full eight seconds.
See who can hold the position the longest without falling.
See who can do the most repetitions of the exercise.

It’s important to remember not all kids are motivated by competition. Some children can become discouraged or overwhelmed by competition and may want to quit. If this strategy doesn’t work for your child or student, it’s best to focus on another strategy that is better suited to their personality and needs.

Strategy 7: Extra Time

If the child is having a particularly hard session, you can help motivate them by giving them “time back” at the end of the session. If they can do the exercises and breathing slowly and purposefully before their time ends, you can tell them they can earn the last few minutes back. The session can either end early or the child can choose to do some other fun activities or play games with the extra time they earn back.

The child can also earn extra “free” time if they do the exercises efficiently or better than they did during their last session.

Reflex Integration Exercises

If you don’t have the exercises needed for reflex integration, you can sign-up for this free 90-minute workshop that provides you with an introduction to reflex integration. The workshop is an introductory presentation to retained reflexes and gives you more details about how you can join the Integrate with Success program that includes all the testings and exercises for six retained Primitive Reflexes. To register for the workshop, click here.

You can also download a copy of our Retained Primitive Reflexes roadmap to get started on a path toward integration by completing the form below. Please check your junk or spam mail for the download link or email us at info@ilslearning.com if you don’t see the packet in your email inbox.

Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs

7 Strategies to Accomplish Positive Compliance with Retained Primitive Reflex Integration