Impulse Control Disruptions Caused by these Retained Primitive Reflexes

This article provides important information about impulse control disruptions caused by retained Primitive Reflexes. 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.

Children with retained Primitive Reflexes often struggle with impulse control disruptions. As a child develops, their impulse control should improve when the brain and body mature, which allows them to manage their impulses better. However, kids with one or more retained Primitive Reflexes may continue to have challenges with impulse control and extreme responses beyond what’s age-appropriate.

What is Impulse Control?

The growth and development of a child’s impulse control is governed by the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Impulse control matures primarily during elementary years, and should continue to improve through the teenage years.

Fully developed impulse control is the child’s ability to pause, think and act based on the following:

• Expectations
• Rules
• Goals

Impulse control can be mistaken for a child’s ability to attend and focus at home or in the classroom. While impulse control is connected to attention and focus, it elicits different responses in a child.

Impulse control helps kids with the following:

• Controlling inappropriate behaviors (blurting or shouting out answers in class)
• Delayed Gratification (getting the toy they want or taking turns in line)
• Thinking before acting and making decisions based on problem-solving skills
• Self-regulation and managing emotions as maturity grows (outbursts, meltdowns, inability to calm)

Kids with poor impulse control tend to react immediately to wants or emotions. Children tend to be naturally impulsive, but those with impulse control disruptions have persistent challenges with the following:

• Behavior
• Emotional grounding
• Social skills
• High learning concepts

Signs of Impulse Control Delays

A lack of impulse control in younger children is normal behavior. However, when impulses overcome the child on a regular basis and include intense patterns of behavior, it may be a sign of immature impulse control. Many times, a child’s impulses will differ from their peers and are more extreme when impulse control is delayed.

Signs of delayed impulse control disruptions may include the following:

• Frequently talks over others or blurts out answers in class
• Talks excessively without waiting their turn
• Becomes frustrated when having to wait in line or acts out when waiting for a turn
• Excessive Behaviors (i.e., biting, hitting, pushing)
• Inability to self-regulate or control emotions
• Acts without thinking, especially in dangerous situations (runs into the road without watching for cars)
• Often makes risky choices on the playground or with friends
• Doesn’t like following rules and acts first before thinking
• Experiences frequent meltdowns and tantrums that are no longer age-appropriate
• Difficulty with transitions from one activity to the other

Other difficulties or problems may also persist in neurodivergent children when it comes to impulse control.

Some children with poor impulse control may also have one or more of the following diagnoses:

• ADHD or ADHD-like behaviors
• Autism
• Sensory Processing Disorder
• Retained Primitive Reflexes
• Traumatic Brain Injury

How is Impulse Control Different from ADHD?

ADHD-like behaviors are often found in several children who also experience lack of impulse control. However, impulse control and attention and focus issues are different.

Attention and Focus

Attention and focus requires a child to concentrate on certain tasks while impulse control is the child’s ability to pause and think before acting, reacting or speaking. The brain has to exert great mental effort to maintain good attention and focus, especially in the classroom. Children with attention and focus issues display different types of behaviors, which can be categorized overall into three different areas.

Without development of the 5 Areas of Attention, a child may get distracted easily or may not be able to sustain their attention and focus in different environments.

Impulse Control

Impulse control stops the child from making immediate decisions and requires them to pause and think about how they should respond or act. A child can struggle with both attention and focus issues as well as poor impulse control.

Connections between attention and focus and impulse control may include the following:

• May become distracted and react with impulsive behaviors
• Wasn’t following the conversation so disrupts the lesson because they get excited and can’t inhibit their response.

Impulse Control and Retained Primitive Reflexes

Children with retained Primitive Reflexes often struggle with impulse control disruptions and self-regulation. If reflexes aren’t inhibited as a baby, the child may experience delayed impulse control development that can impact their overall emotional, behavioral and social well-being.

As foundational skills and the brain matures, so does higher learning functions. These higher learning functions, like impulse control, should override foundational abilities as the child grows unless reflexes becomes retained.

If reflex retention disrupts the “lower-order” of foundational development, neural connections in the brain won’t mature automatically on their own and the child will fail to develop a strong sense of impulse control.

Kids who experience delays in impulse control may have one or more of the following retained Primitive Reflexes.

Moro Reflex

The Moro reflex is one of the reflexes most closely tied to lack of impulse control when retained. Because the Moro reflex is one of the child’s survival reflexes and causes the child to startle easily, they often struggle with impulse control.

A child with poor impulse control that also has a retained Moro reflex may experience the following:

• Runs or hides when they come in contact with certain sensory stimuli within their environment
• Fight or flight mode
• Has high anxiety, especially when feeling threatened
• May bite, punch, scratch or hit when feeling insecure
• Has frequent meltdowns or tantrums when certain behaviors are required or expected

ATNR Reflex

Kids with a retained Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR) reflex may lack impulse control because the two sides of the brain are often disconnected. When the right and left sides of the brain aren’t working together, kids tend to live on the emotional side of the brain and respond impulsively instead of rationally.

Kids with a retained ATNR reflex have trouble crossing the midline of the body and with eye-hand coordination. Both of these foundational sills assist in the development of neural connections between the two hemispheres of the brain.

When the ATNR reflex is retained, kids can’t control their impulses and often respond in the following ways:

• Disrupts others at inappropriate times because they act without thinking
• Guesses at words when reading or on tests because they get frustrated when they don’t immediately know the right answer.
• Slow reading and low comprehension because it entails great effort
• Can’t follow through with tasks or assignments

STNR Reflex

A retained Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR) reflex is typically associated with ADHD-like behaviors, which also includes impulsive behaviors. Because kids with a retained STNR tend to struggle with posture and core strength, they fidget and wiggle more frequently when seated. Children act impulsively when trying to focus because they have a hard time controlling the body when the STNR reflex is retained.

A child with a retained STNR reflex may make impulsive decisions when:

• They are asked to wait their turn or to stop an activity they enjoy
• Copying notes because they can’t transition their focus from near to far
• Seated at their desk and may wiggle in their seat or wonder around the classroom

Children who integrate the STNR reflex show improvements in impulse control, memory and attention and focus.

TLR Reflex

Children with a retained Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex (TLR) reflex may experience impulsive behaviors because they often feel ungrounded or overstimulated.

A retained TLR reflex delays a child’s development of balance and coordination, which triggers uneasiness and impulsive reactions. If a child feels out-of-control physically or emotionally because of a retained TLR, they often react or respond impulsively with extreme emotional expressions.

When a TLR reflex is retained, it causes the child to feel the following:

• Uneasy when feeling unbalanced
• Vertigo when going up and down stairs
• Anxious when playing sports because of jerky and uncoordinated movements
• Rebellious when it comes to school and completing assignments
• “Out of touch with their feelings”
• Impatient when waiting for others

Spinal Galant Reflex

The Spinal Galant reflex is also associated with ADHD-like behaviors. When the reflex is “triggered,” it causes the child to fidget and squirm, which often leads to impulsive behaviors. If the child is forced to sit still or sit quietly, they may revert to other types of impulsive responses.

To regulate their body or to try and maintain their attention, the child may impulsively react by substituting fidgeting with the following:

• Grunting
• Humming
• Hooting
• Blowing bubbles

Retained Primitive Reflexes Roadmap

To learn more about six retained Primitive Reflexes and the signs and symptoms that come with each, download our retained Primitive Reflexes Roadmap below. Complete the form and confirm your newsletter subscription (it’s free) in your email inbox to receive your packet. If you do not see your download come to your junk or spam folder, please email us at info@ilslearing.com so we can assist.

References

Hickey, J., & Feldhacker, D. R. (2021). Primitive reflex retention and attention among preschool children. Journal of Occupational Therapy, Schools, & Early Intervention, 15(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/19411243.2021.1910606

Konicarová, J., & Raboch, J. (2021). Disinhibition of Primitive Reflexes in Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder: Insight Into Specific Mechanisms in Girls and Boys. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 695‑? https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.430685

Gieysztor, E. Z., Choińska, A. M., & Paprocka‑Borowicz, M. (2016). Persistence of primitive reflexes and associated motor problems in healthy preschool children. Archives of Medical Science, 14(1), 167–173. https://doi.org/10.5114/aoms.2016.60503

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