{"id":344739,"date":"2024-11-24T19:00:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T19:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/graphotherapy-what-are-primitive-reflexes\/"},"modified":"2024-11-24T19:00:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T19:00:52","slug":"graphotherapy-what-are-primitive-reflexes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/graphotherapy-what-are-primitive-reflexes\/","title":{"rendered":"Graphotherapy: what are primitive reflexes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before suspecting dysgraphia, be aware that your child’s handwriting difficulties may be linked to unintegrated primitive reflexes<\/strong>. Let’s find out together what this means and which games and movements graphotherapists<\/a> use to help integrate them.<\/p>\n

What are primitive reflexes?<\/h2>\n

Also known as infant reflexes, primitive reflexes are involuntary and unconscious reactions of the nervous system to a sensory stimulus<\/strong>. Some appear in the womb, others at birth or in the first months of life. Essential to development, these primitive reflexes protect us, help us move, and support the coordination of our movements.<\/p>\n

Normally integrated through a three-phase pattern (emergence, activation and integration), they can be disrupted for various reasons<\/strong> – whether stress, exhaustion, a difficult birth, or a lack of stimulation in infancy, among others.<\/p>\n

What’s the link with handwriting?<\/h2>\n

Whatever the cause, any disruption in the integration of primitive reflexes can lead to learning difficulties<\/strong>, particularly in the voluntary movements involved in writing, affecting pencil grip or the child’s posture<\/strong>. Among the reflexes most likely to disrupt handwriting are the palmar grasp reflex and the Asymmetric Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR).<\/p>\n

With the palmar grasp reflex<\/strong>, the child struggles to hold their pencil correctly: beyond potentially painful tension, they will tend to grip it either in the palm or with just the fingertips. With ATNR<\/strong>, hand-eye coordination is impaired, disrupting the development of laterality and sitting position: the child will struggle to position their paper correctly, will constantly shift position, will “break” their wrist, and will use only one eye to read…<\/p>\n

How does the graphotherapist test for these issues?<\/h2>\n

When a child has handwriting difficulties, a graphotherapist has them carry out a few small games and movements to test their primitive reflexes<\/strong>, in order to determine whether the problem lies here or whether it could be a functional disorder such as dysgraphia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The professional will thus test the palmar grasp reflex<\/strong>, which often shows up as a tripod grip with thumb flexion driving the writing movement; the palmar reflex of hand traction<\/strong>, which shows up as tension in the forearms; poor integration of ATNR<\/strong>, which shows up as clumsiness in handwriting, laterality issues and difficulty crossing the midline, among others; the Symmetric Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR)<\/strong>, which shows up as poor sitting posture, weakness in the arms, and difficulty copying due to neck movements between the board and the desk; the Babkin palmomental reflex<\/strong>, which shows up as mouth movements while writing, tension in the hands and clenched jaws; and the Galant reflex<\/strong>, which shows up as difficulty staying seated on a chair, an urge to wriggle and fidget…<\/p>\n

With these observations, the graphotherapist can determine the origin of the difficulties<\/strong> and suggest suitable remediation. Don’t hesitate to consult the professionals on the Ora-Visio platform<\/a> to put your mind at ease on the subject!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before suspecting dysgraphia, be aware that your child’s handwriting difficulties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":344740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[331],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-handwriting-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}