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Everybody happy Thursday, , August 18th. I think we are. Yes. Where I am. Here’s Elizabeth.
She is so super excited. To talk with all of you today. Because we’re going to do some fun stuff. When we talk about the S T N R reflex. So until we get through this Elizabeth time for nap, we got it. All right, girlfriend, I’ll see you later guys. So she doesn’t have a girlfriend nap, and I am going to go to my slides and we’re going to start having a party.
S T and R symmetrical tonic neck reflex. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. This is number seven in our amazing understanding primitive reflex series and without a do we need to thanks ChiroSecure for giving us the time always having our backs and being on the cutting edge to helping you out there.
In our profession to make sure you’ve got the latest knowledge
and practice. So thank you ChiroSecure. And before I get to rock and roll and I just had to add the sense of it, because I’m super excited to announce the release of volume three, the pediatric chiropractic textbooks. So this is the third volume.
We need to think Dr. Claudia, Andre and Dr. Greg Clogger for their their support their work, their vision and their dedication to our profession. Awesome to them. Get it. Now you can order it. Amazon, I think is rented. But look on Amazon that she could the third edition, or you can go straight to the publisher and order your copy and get it soon.
I received mine a couple of days ago and it’s awesome. Exciting, and incredible new chapters in. I did a brand new chapter on the foundations and neurodevelopment. So get your copy. Now we owe it to the profession to know this information. All right. Look at all. We’ve gone through in the last few months we’ve gone down.
This is the natural integration order of primitive reflexes, and we’ve covered all of those. We’re down to STNR. Boom boom. Next month. We’re going to do Babinski and then I’m going to turn the title of it. And maybe I’ll tell you next time, next month, what I’m going to turn the tide, but bring you some really fun cutting edge information.
As we move forward to looking, how do we not just work with the little fiddle parts, but how do we work? And the preconception prenatal paradigm to basically prevent. Disease and optimize neuro development and the newborns. So let’s do it. All right. STNR like I said, symmetrical tonic, neck reflex. What we’re looking at, it should be integrated being between months nine and 11 postnatally.
But again, when we go, but you can go back to the very first one we did in this series where we talk about it’s imperative that we have specific motor milestones. In order motor movement patterns in order for these reflexes to integrate and with the STNR, it’s also known as the pre crawling reflex.
So here’s another tip. A lot of people freak out if little fiddle fart is not crawling by eight months, nine months. It’s okay. Because STNR needs to integrate before they take off on the loose into the creepy. Creeping really is crawling on all fours. We need to integrate this reflex first and that happens between mine’s nine and 11.
So we don’t necessarily want them creeping on all fours. I E crawling, we call it crawling in this country before that. So we’re gonna talk about what we need to see in order for this reflex to integrate before they take off and are on their own. So this enables us to get to the creeping calling phase.
If it’s not integrated, what we’re going to see is we’re going to see these Averett crawling patterns like the army call the butts, scoot in, scoot you on your butt. Maybe dragging one side. What happened. With the STNR when my head when baby’s head goes into flection, the arms go into flection.
Okay. And they can’t get anywhere. So if that reflex is still active and they’re wanting to take off, they get frustrated. They want to take off to get to the toy at the end of the hallway or whatever. So they will create abberant maladaptive. Motor patterns in order to do that activity. I E but scooch army crawl or whatever.
All right. So we want this to integrate in order for us to foster a good cross crawl. I E four point creeping. Motor pattern hyperactive reflex. If this stays active, we can see a lot of tension around the neck, the cervical spine. So we can have chronic subluxation patterns of the cervical and upper thoracic spine because they’re chronically on tension.
You can’t, again, they’re constantly on tension. They might be in a sympathetic dominant shift. They’re a sympathetic dominant shift because of this. They can’t be in a rest and digest and growth and development phase. So think of this all in a very dynamic, complex way. We are looking at vestibular proprioceptive.
Auditory and visual sensory systems associated with this reflex. So this reflex stays active. It doesn’t integrate those four prime, very important sensory systems can be weak or maladaptive in nature. All right. So then we now get sensory motor consequences as a result of. Sustained active reflex fast do not.
So we can see long-term poor posture, constantly hunched posture, again, headaches, TMJ issues, all this muscle tension in the upper cervical and upper thoracic area trouble with reading, writing. This is the classic w sit little fiddle fart. So if we go back to. The sensory systems that this reflex is associated with vestibular proprioception, that it’s gonna be a lot of core dynamic core stabilization.
If they don’t have good core stabilization, maybe partly due to this reflex mean too active. They don’t have good postural control. So they have trouble sitting independently on their own. So they’re going to need more floor surface, more space in order to help them stabilize posturally and thus, we see the WMS.
So it’s all connected. And then if we go on, and we look at the long-term potential consequences of not having good core postural stability, core control, we see that very much associated in the autism spectrum. Add ADHD, dyslexia neuropsychiatric disorders. Really what I want you to bring it down to is these active reflexes are pulling down the neurological integrity of the CNS.
Thus, we can get a label of whatever disorder. Okay. We can have trouble with copy and they have trouble with visual accommodation and visual convergence and divergence. So Tableau copying from the board down to the patient. Et cetera. Trouble stay on. These are the classic kids that have like ants in the pants in school.
All right. So what we can do is we want to look at these reflexes in a way that what motor movement patterns can we help the infant get into and help to foster integration of these reflexes? And then, so that’s step number. Not let it stay active. What can we do to not let it stay active and help integrate then in the older child, after the age of one year, when these reflexes should be integrated, if that reflex still stays persistent, they come into your office and they’re 14 months old.
Okay. What can we do to integrate it? So your first step is how to optimize. Proper neuro development, not allowing this reflex to stay active pass age nine of 11, 9, 9 to 11 months. So one thing we want to do is live with little babies, little for the arts is get them in the yoga pose position. Okay.
Kind of the child’s posts and get them to look up and down and follow a toy, follow some so we get. A little bit hard for me to get her in a yoga pose position. I’m still dealing with issues with my hand injury, but so she’s going to be in the yoga pose position. Okay. And we want somebody in front of her with a toy or something, getting her to get her head into extension and following a toy, getting him to move, head up and down, right to left and eventually getting them to come up and reach preferably across the mid line to grab that toy.
So these are fun games. We should be doing, interacting with our babies anyway, and teaching parents to do that. Okay. So that would be, in your ages, 6, 8, 9 months then by nine ish months, they should be getting on all fours and starting to rock. All right, we’ll go over that. So this active.
STNR can call for a lack of what they call differentiation. Basically being able to do one task, move one arm while the other one stay still. Okay. So I should be able to write. With my right hand and whatever hand them in the right dominant hand, the right with, and the other on can, can stay still. So we’ll see this show up in the later years, potentially as when we test them for sequential finger touching, they have to, when they’re doing their right hand, their left hand has to move as well.
They can’t differentiate side to side. Both sides have to move. That means that they don’t have good lateralization. Right brain and left brain. Okay. So these are the things we can see the long-term restricted from what we call bilateral coordination movements, being able to move the extremities, symmetrically and asymmetrically, like in a walking, like in doing jumping jacks.
Okay. And this is what’s tied into our visual system. Of convergence and divergence. We have to be able to have bilateral coordination to develop good visual motor skills. Again, oral motor issues. Again, I tag TB, some trouble tracking across the midline. Reading, reading comprehension can be an issue for us as chiropractors.
This is a reflex that is very much associated. Cranial sacral rhythm, the occiput and the sacrum. So we’re going to want to make sure we check those area for subluxation patterns, chronic subluxation patterns. We want to look at doing maybe some craniosacral therapy, et cetera. Okay. So there’s a mouthful for you.
Again, it’s going to be very important for the visual and auditory systems. If this act of reflux stays active and they don’t do a proper. Cross crawl for point crawling pattern for at least three to four months. That’s what you want to see. And this reflex stays active. We can see a lot of trouble with visual, spatial depth perception issues.
So again, our three big systems that are involved in poor postural control are going to be. Vestibular and proprioception. And this is just one part of how that can be related to dysregulation within those systems. So what we might see in school, we might see this w sit, they’ve got that hunched posture.
Again, this forward hunched posture as chiropractors, we can be trying to work until the cows come home and just adjusted desks. And then we just not changing those postural patterns. Look at some of these reflux. That might be hanging up and causing them to be in these core postural maladaptive postural positions.
They often times, because this is so much, so let’s take the, let’s take the task of sitting and reading in class or reading at home or whatever you’re sitting upstairs. Feed on the floor, arms flex to read a book. What happens with this reflux? When my arms are flexed, my legs want to extend when my legs are flexed, my arms want to extend.
So what happens oftentimes they’re more comfortable if they can’t be seated in a seated position. With their arms, flex and reading and be able to extend their legs. They may be best standing up. So a lot of these kids like to have alternative seating patterns in school, like up desks, they do better in that capacity.
So again, that’s another little red tell sign that this reflex may be too active. They slouch a lot. They might need to re read or write in this slouch position here. And again, it’s all accommodating for the activity on this reflex. So in the older child, what we want to do again, the, for. Four and a half inch to five year old child.
That’s when you usually you can start to use this posture, this position to see, but it’s active before that age. You can, if the child’s small enough and you’re strong enough, you can do this with them over your. Okay. And you can flex their head and extend their head and see what their arms do. So remember flexed, when you flat, when they flex their head, you’re looking for reflection of the arms, particularly.
And when you extend the head, you’re looking for extension of the arms. So the older child, what you’re going to see as you’re going to have them extend their head and you want to see, are they going to. Is there a booty gonna come back and they’re going to sit on their haunches. Are they going to extend their arms?
And they’re going to sit back on their haunches, the Cobra pose when you flip their head, do their arms collapse into flection. And you also look if their toes come up off the mat or off the floor and I’ll show you a video, relax. I got videos on. So what you’re gonna do is you’re going to do this position.
You’re going to have them flex and extend their neck and hold for five seconds. Eyes can stay open and repeat about six times. Now, this is a great time when you have them in a four-point position like this on hands and knees. This is a great time to also look at their postural tone. Can they hold that tone?
Good. And their core good. Or are they very wobbly? And poor core control. And you’ll see that in the little fiddle fart that I have the video, but this gives you some clue as to what is their postural tone. And again, that is for us as chiropractors, that is so incredibly huge because big roles are going to be the vestibular and proprioceptive system and that poor control.
And those are the kiddos that we see to go on often to get a diagnosis. Neuropsychiatric illness. Scoliosis is another big thing we want to look at if we see that poor call postural control. What we want to do in order to promote again, good sensory motor development. So as a little fiddle part, this six, eight, ish baby. We wanted to look at doing that child pose and have them look up and down and up for twine reach. Like we showed you before, right around nine ish months. If they had good, if they had good core control, we want to do some rocking. I’ll show you videos. We want to do some rocking with their head up and their eyes looking for.
That’ll help start that integration of this reflex and get them ready for the four point crawling I E creeping face. Okay. And then we’ll show you what we can do to, for the oldest child that has an active, pertaining versus an active STNR. So let’s go here the, before. So now we’re going to do the STNR, the medical tonic neck reflex.
All right. Can you take your hands and knees again? Okay. Your position wants to be legs apart. Feet flat has flat and forward. That’s what you’re looking at. Can you w position. Okay. And that’s pretty.
Okay,
good job. So
I’m going to go look at my rainbow right there. And this is one of the ways you can work to integrate this, get them walking all the way back on my booty and look forward.
Good job. That’s exactly what we want. The toast splat, not cross.
And that’s good integration for the STNR. Kiddos that have retained the ants and the pants against gets it in the classroom. So that is so good. So then when you have them rock, have him rock far enough forward. So the shoulders are just coming forward over their fingertips and then have them far enough back where they’re sitting on their booty.
Okay. Their booty is sitting on the heels. Okay. Nice and slow and controlled. Not all crazy out of control too fast. Now, what if you have a low tone kiddo where you can’t. They can’t do that on their own. Again, it’s all about meeting them where they’re at on their functional capacity. Okay. So we can assist them.
We can help them out and we can watch them here.
So my.
So you’ll see this little kid, he was just adorable. You’ll see his tongue come out. That’s overflow moving often. We see that because of lack of what we talked about before differentiation. So you just have to assist them until they get that core. A little bit more. And then of course we do other things too.
We have them on a physio to get the court more solid, so they can do this. We have them on the physio balls and try to come up into extension or over a Bosu ball, the halftone balls, trying to foster more of that extension and core control so that this becomes easier in the long run. So there you have it for the S T N R.
And again, ChiroSecure. You’re amazing. Thank you for always having our backs. Thank you for allowing us to get this information out there. I will be here to the third Thursday of September. Holy buckets. We’re going to be at the September ready. And Erik Kowalke would be here the first Thursday in September.
And we are going to again, I’ll finish up with the Babinski reflex next month, and then we’ll go on to some other amazing fun things until that keeps saving lives. Keep turning the tide and keeping them.
Today’s pediatric show to the children was brought to you by ChiroSecure. .