Brain Balance--The Home Program

Last week, we started the home program portion of our 12-week journey.  I have a binder that houses a ton of exercises, forms, nutrition guidelines, and answers. Two to three times a day, there are a series of exercises and other random things that we complete.  This includes things to help remedy his primitive reflexes and things to strengthen his limited skills.

Tyler's evaluation determined that he is right brain hemisphere weak. The Brain Balance program is based off a pyramid approach.  At the bottom of the pyramid are primitive reflexes that we are born with.  It is believed that if those reflexes don't disappear as we grow older that it affects our sensory motor, cognitive, and academic performance.  So, the first thing they did was test Tyler for eight basic primitive reflexes that all babies are born with.  He still had every single one. So, we are working to fix those reflexes at home while the center works to strengthen his right brain hemisphere through sensory and cognitive activities designed specifically for Tyler. When kids have a weaker hemisphere, the two hemispheres are literally not even which causes a disconnect between them.  By strengthening the weaker hemisphere, it allows the two to make connections.

One of the many primitive reflex exercises we do pertains to his palmer (grasp) reflex. This reflex develops in utero. The common evidence of this reflex being present is "grasping". In early stages of neonatal development, this reflex is also related to feeding (Babkin response). This reflex is elicited by suckling and kneading in time with the suckling response.

Retention symptoms past 3 months of age include:

• Poor handwriting with a noticeable difficulty getting things out on paper
• Poor fine motor skills and manual dexterity
• Verbal articulation problems
• General postural problems that cause a slump when sitting
• Possibly jumbles up letters as they write them down on paper

So, we have a simple exercise with this stress ball where Tyler holds the ball with his right hand and squeezes it by bringing his fingers to the ball and back down.

 Another example is the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ASTNR).  This reflex begins about 18 weeks after conception and should be present at birth. This reflex appears to assist the babies movement and participation in the birthing process. After birth the reflex continues and plays an important part in the development of hand eye coordination, object and distance perception. By the middle of the first year of life this is normally accomplished and the ATNR, being no longer required, should be integrated. 

In early months, after hand-eye co-ordination is established, the ATNR locks vision on to anything which catches the attention. If the ATNR is retained beyond 6 months of age the following can be possible;

• Hand-eye co-ordination (this can be both related to movement with hand and eye in sport as well as handwriting concerns)
• Inability to cross over the mid line of the body
• Problems with written performance and the child will find oral performances much easier
• Visual tracking problems
• Ambidexterity (inability to determine a dominant hand past the correct age)
• Proprioception and inability to judge distances.
• Adults can also have chronic shoulder problems and/or neck problems

 To help remedy this, Tyler does a few different exercises, and the "reverse lizard" is one of them.

 Finally, another example is the symmetrical tonic neck reflex.  Retention of this reflex affects gross motor skills. Children are more injury prone, clumsy, and may find it difficult to coordinate their upper and lower body together.  Exercise may not be enjoyed but once corrected, we commonly see an eagerness to exercise and an improved performance running and swimming.

 Tyler does the cat position where he lifts his head up and down slowly while maintaining a flat back.

Fitting all the exercises (there are many more than these three shown) in 2-3 times a day is really hard on our schedule.  We've put jiu jitsu on hold because he will be doing a lot over the next 12 weeks.

We will be starting the center program on Monday, followed by our nutrition counseling and testing.  Here we go!