Customer Reviews

Reflexes, Learning and Behavior: A Window into the Child's Mind

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Few people are aware of the crucial role of primitive reflexes in child development. While primitive reflexes do not directly affect cognitive development, their presence, when they should have integrated by the age of 3, may signify various learning challenges, such as attention deficit and poor motor skills.

This book does well to raise the awareness by giving a scientific basis for why primitive reflexes affect learning and behavior. Unfortunately, the author does not reveal how she seeks to integrate those reflexes. Probably a case of not wanting to reveal trade secrets, but as far as I know, others have used various methods, such as getting the child to crawl, using rhythmic movements or isometric exercises.

By all means read this book. It gives you information that will deepen your understanding of the nervous system and how it functions when it is a bit off.
This book will interest parents, teachers, professionals who work with people having learning/movement issues. It offers a way to identify patterns that are left over from infancy.
Many high achieving adults will also find their quirks here.
This is not a book of recipes, but it will give you a good starting point.
It is more complex than Brain Gym, but covers similar material.
Roberta Prada
Author of the English version of "The Ear and the Voice' by A. Tomatis, with F. Keeping, and P. Sollier; the English editions of J. Faure: "The Voice and Singing, a practical treatise" with F. Keeping, the orig 1886; owner of two websites: vocalimages.com and voxmentor.com (under construction).

Excellant resource for looking at how prolonged reflexes can affect learning and behavior, also gives a chart for grading a reflex and ways to inhibit it. Great for those working with children, but is beneficial for adults as well.

As an Educational Therapist and mother of a special needs child I find this book very helpful in understanding the roots of difficulties children have both academically and in their social/physical lives. I have also been able to offer information found in this book to other parents, and direct them to Occupational Therapy resources for remediation of the difficulties their children were experiencing.

As an Occupational Therapist working in the area of pediatrics (OT For Kidz)and using sensory integration strategies, this was an excellent read for explaining how the central nervous system and reflexes relate to sensory processing skills, motor skills, it effects on learning and overall daily functional skills. I think it is well written, reader friendly and believe all clinicians working with children should read it and apply it in their evaluations and therapy sessions. I think it can also benefit any developmentalist (i.e. OT, PT), pediatrician, audiologist, teacher, parent, etc. to understand more about strengths and weakness seen with their children.

This book is like a bible for retained reflexes. It does an excellent job of showing how each retained reflex impacts the body and then explains the resulting cascade of symptoms that can be seen from each retained reflex. I had been searching for something to tie all of my daughters symptoms together, so instead of a dozen of seperate problems or diagnoses we could have one problem with many symptoms. This would allow me to focus on the best treatment plan for my daughter. This book was it!!! If you are at a loss as to why your child has the behaviors or deficits he or she does, you may be able to read the symptoms under each retained reflex and see if any is a close match for your child. If so you can request to have your child tested for that reflex for confirmation. It is simple, quick and non-invasive to have done. Parents or the child's care giver is a child's best advocate.

This book is a fantastic, simple book that gives the basic information that one would need to learn about primitive reflexes, and it's got all the info about what happens when these are retained and how to test them properly. I would recommend this for healthcare professionals - it would be a little too difficult to understand for someone who hasn't had any previous training in neurology.

Avoid price gouging by these Amazon Marketplace sellers. I ordered it directly from the publisher for under $30 (including shipping) and received it in less than a week.

Detailed chapters cover the reflexes/reflex testing, the role of reflexes in the development of postural control, brain development, and the sensory systems. This book will be a great addition to my resource library used in my work with children with special needs. A parent/teacher/layperson interested in this topic may find "A Well Balanced Child" (same author) easier to read.

I became interested in this topic because my child's teacher advised that he took occupational therapy to help improve his handwriting. And, expectedly, it did. But I wondered why and this book, recommended by his OC therapist after she saw me gobble up all the materials at her office, had so many of the answers. It's not an easy read, as it gets into the cognitive and anatomical reasons the brain and connected systems work the way they do. In a nutshell, the book explains the connection between early-life reflexes and skill development lasting well into adulthood, not just for children with severe neurological disorders but for everyone. (I for instance now better understand how my vestibular system can be calibrated to help me improve my sense of orientation, which is VERY bad and I just saw it as a given.)

I think this is a great book for any therapist or parent who wants to truly understand what helps and hinders learning. As a physical therapist, this book opened my eyes to other underlying causes for poor posture and movement besides for the typical muscular and joint issues that we typically deal with. A must-read.