Primitive Reflexes
What they are
Primitive reflexes are automatic, involuntary movement patterns that are essential for early survival and development. They serve survival, protective, restorative, and postural purposes during our earliest months.
During this period our nervous systems are developing at a rapid rate. Our systems use the proprioceptive, vestibular, tactile, visual, and kinesthetic input provided by these innate movement patterns to develop and mature the brain — from the brainstem up to the neocortex.
These reflexive movement patterns give us the ability to initiate movement and engage with our environment as babies. This is how physical, cognitive, emotional, visual, sensory, and motor development occurs.
What happens when they don't integrate
"A retained primitive reflex is like a program running in the background of your nervous system: you can't see it, but it's using up processing power and creating glitches you can't explain."
Dr. Conta-Steencken — BRMT Instructor
An active reflex is not a diagnosis. It's a sign of incomplete neurodevelopment — and it shows up in ways that rarely look connected to each other: coordination difficulties alongside anxiety, learning challenges alongside chronic tension, attention problems alongside poor posture.
Why do reflexes stay active?
The integration process depends on movement - specifically, the repetitive, rhythmic, whole-body movements that babies naturally make in the first year of life. Anything that disrupts this natural movement sequence can leave reflexes active. Common disruption factors include:
A difficult or traumatic birth: cesarean delivery, vacuum extraction, cord complications, prolonged labor, very fast labor - all of these can stress the brainstem during a very vulnerable window.
Prenatal stress or maternal illness.
Limited floor time in infancy and too much time in “containers” (car seats, bouncers, walkers, and swings). This limits the baby’s whole-body movement and sensory experiences which help the brain develop.
Illness or hospitalization in the early months.
Skipped crawling -the child who goes straight from sitting to walking, bypassing a critical stage of visual and motor development.
Chronic stress in the home environment, because when the nervous system is in survival mode, development takes second priority.
And various environmental factors (toxin exposure, food sensitivities, and nutritional deficits) that can interfere with neural maturation at the cellular level
(Goddard, 2005; Blomberg, 2015; Chandradasa & Rathnayake, 2020).
An important note
Many of these factors are unavoidable. Many of the interventions that contribute to reflex retention — cesarean birth, neonatal hospitalization, the use of car seats — were done with the best intentions or were medically necessary.
Additionally, reflexes can reactivate in older children and adults after trauma, injury, chronic illness, or sustained stress.
The point is not what went wrong. The point is that something can be done about it now.
(Blomberg, 2015; Goddard, 2023)
What can be done?
As innate as primitive reflexes are, so are the movements we use to integrate them.
Primitive reflexes and the movements that integrate them hold the key to brain maturation, emotional development, and physical maturation. BRMT gives us access to these innate neural pathways — the same ones the nervous system was built to use.
And the movements can be adapted to any person, any body, at any age.
Symptoms of active reflexes
We’ve listed the most common symptoms of these reflexes - note that they can be found in both children and adults.
Fear Paralysis Reflex
Anxiety
Fears
Low tolerance to stress
Frequent tantrums
A sense of being frozen or feeling stuck
Social isolation
Extreme shyness
Fear/ avoidance of new situations or experiences
Perfectionism
Helplessness
Depression
Hypersensitivity to one or several of the senses - especially touch, sound, and light
Sleeping disorders
Eating disorders
Panic attacks
Social phobias
Oppositional behavior
Aggressive behavior
Difficulty making or maintaining eye contact, or intense staring without blinking
Babinski and Plantar Reflexes
Toe walking
Sensitivity to shoes/ socks
Sensitive feet - may prefer to be barefoot or be averse to going barefoot
Problems with balance and stability
Challenges running or aversion to walking
Flat feet
High arches
Loose ankles that easily sprain
Tension in legs, ankles, hips, or feet
Awkward gait
More common in adults:
Foot pain
Knee pain
Rotated Pelvis
May cause osteoarthritis of hip joint (when combined with retained ATNR)
High or low foot arches
Weak ankles
Stiffness/ tightness in ankles
Spinal Galant Reflex
Preference for loose clothing, dislike of belts or pants with tags in the back
Scoliosis
Bedwetting past the age of 5
Extreme ticklishness
Attention difficulty; poor concentration & short-term memory; overall fatigue
May prefer to do homework or watch TV lying on the floor
Difficulty getting in touch with feelings
Restlessness when sitting or being held
Tightness in the lower back and/ or hips
Lower back pain
Rotated pelvis
Spastic colitis
Incontinence
More common in adults:
Pain and/ or tension in the lower back
Hip pain
Tightness in the hips
Rotated pelvis
Spastic colitis
Repression of emotions
Moro Reflex
Anxiety
Fears
Poor adaptability and resilience
Resistance to change
Sensory sensitivities (light/ visual, sound, touch, and smell)
Easily overwhelmed
Attention difficulties
Motion sickness
Poor balance and coordination
Emotional outbursts/ difficulty regulating emotions
Difficulty sleeping or settling down to sleep
Poor stamina - may cycle between hyperactivity and fatigue
Weakened immune system
STNR - Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex
Difficulty reading
Vision problems
“W” sitting
Upper extremity weakness
Poor posture, difficulty sitting upright in a chair - tendency to slump
Attention and focus difficulty – trouble staying on task, squirming or fidgeting
Difficulty separating the upper and lower body (can be seen by a difficulty learning to swim, especially breaststroke)
Slowness with copying tasks
Poor eye-hand coordination
More common in adults:
Thoracic kyphosis
Neck tension or pain
Back tension or pain
Vision challenges
Reading difficulty
Weak upper extremities
Poor posture
Poor coordination
Grasp and Hands Pulling Reflexes
Weak hands
Poor fine motor skills/ fine motor coordination
Poor handwriting
Poor or unusual pencil grip; refusal to write
Poor speech, articulation, and communication skills
Difficulty grasping and releasing objects
Challenges with speech and articulation; speech delay
Difficulty expressing ideas orally or in writing
Hypersensitivity to touch on the palms and face
Stuttering
Jaw tension, grinding or clenching teeth
Tension in the hands and forearms
Inability to latch during breastfeeding
Oral fixation
Involuntary movements of the mouth and tongue when writing, playing an instrument or when using scissors, etc.
Arm waving or flapping
More common in adults:
Tennis or golf elbow
Jaw tension
Poor handwriting
Poor fine motor skills
ATNR - Asymmetric Tonic Neck Reflex
Difficulty reading (including dyslexia)
Difficulty with spelling, grammar, and math
Clumsiness, poor coordination
Vision problems (no binocular vision, inability to track, poor “pursuit” eye movements, etc.)
Visual perceptual difficulties (especially left-right reversals)
Leans to one side when writing at a desk
Poor handwriting and poor expression of ideas through writing
Inability to cross midline
Poor balance
Neck pain or tension
Asymmetry in the body (including scoliosis)
Rotated pelvis
Attention difficulties
Poor fine motor skills
More common in adults:
Neck pain or tension
Back pain or tension
Knee pain
Asymmetry in the body
Scoliosis
Rotated pelvis
Vision challenges
Clumsiness, poor coordination
TLR - Tonic Labyrinth Neck Reflex
Sensory processing challenges
Auditory processing challenges
Poor balance
Poor spatial awareness
Poor visual-perceptual skills
Difficulty sequencing
Attention difficulties
Vestibular sensitivity
Motion sickness
Fear of heights
Difficulty judging space, distance, and depth and speed
Poor motor coordination
Weak neck muscles, neck tension, and/or neck pain
Poor posture
Hypertonia or hypotonia (depending on which direction remains active)
Weak eye muscles, tendency to be cross-eyed, poor control of eye movements
Skipping words or line of print when reading
Letter or number reversals
Toe walking (especially if Fear Paralysis Reflex is active along with the TLR)
Reflexes present differently in different people, and each person may experience a different combination of symptoms.
Keep in mind that there is a complex interplay between the reflexes themselves - for example, the TLR will not integrate if the Fear Paralysis has not integrated first. A comprehensive assessment is recommended to determine which reflexes remain active, and which are the priority for integration.