Integrating Primitive Reflexes Through Play and Exercise: An Interactive Guide to the Moro Reflex for Parents, Teachers, and Service Providers (Reflex Integration Through Play) Paperback – December 27, 2019

Written by a top professional in the field this book is full of great information but is also easy to read so that any parent or teacher can understand and implement.As a physical therapist who worked for years helping children before school age and into elementary school, I can tell you that this book is a valuable resource full of the exact information and exercises that I would recommend to the families I worked with.Highly recommended for teachers, foster parents, daycare providers and anyone who is helping to teach or raise kids that may be having difficulty with some of the normal physical milestones.If you are a parent of a child that is having difficulty with some of the normal milestones and is now or might be working with some form or physical or occupational therapy this book would be a valuable resource to help you understand how to help progress even faster with simple daily exercises you can do at home.There are illustrations and simple explanations of the exercises in the book, plus the author does a great job of teaching things that you can incorporate into play so the child will be engaged and enjoy the exercise.I love seeing top-level experts share their knowledge in ways that can help so many peopleHighly recommend this book

This book Integrating Primitive Reflexes Through Play and Exercise primarily addresses the retained Moro reflex in children which results in over-reactivity to stimuli including over reactive emotional responses from children. Kokeb McDonald details the Moro reflex symptoms and behaviors and how to address it through step by step exercises and practical methods. With her professional experience and expertise in the field of Occupational therapy, Kokeb McDonald has provided detailed illustrations on exercises —integration of retained primitive Moro reflex. Addressing these primitive reflexes addresses behaviors, reduces stress due to the release of cortisol from the flight or fight response at a primitive neurological level. I like how she highlights addressing other primitive reflexes at the same time is beneficial. She provides a great screening tool, specific exercises and tools to track and chart progress of the Moro reflex integration. She has also included movement / sensory breaks to avoid overwhelming the nervous system while working with reflexes. I wish I had this guide when I worked with Early Childhood Intervention, Preschool age children and even older children with neurological disabilities with over active reflexes. As an SLP, working with neurological and other disabilities, I know that unless postural balance, sensory integration of these primitive reflexes and overall neurological and behavioral stability is attained working with communication; speech, language or articulation can be challenging. I cannot wait to read what McDonald has to offer about addressing other overactive primitive reflexes and their management. This book is great resource for teachers, Special Ed teachers, assistants, the multidisciplinary therapy team, parents and even caregivers who work with children with disabilities— who demonstrate overactive reflexes. Anita Oommen, MS-CCC,SLP

The pictures are helpful step by step cartoon figures. There are explanation pages, a symptom list, charts, review pages. Very helpful and playful for about 4 years old and above.

This series of books is great as a therapist but also so reasonably priced and a great easy to understand guidebook for parents on the importance of reflex integration as well as easy to follow exercises.Incredible resource!!

This book is so helpful! My daughter has been doing OT for a while, and I’ve also done tons of research online, but this concise book has everything I need with easy pictures, step by step instructions and modifications. I could have saved myself lots of time spent searching online if I had just started with this book! It is so helpful to have it all in one place and my daughter even likes to pick out exercises by looking through it. Definitely recommend this book!

There are exercises in this manual that we’ve never done in therapy, and they have allowed me to make it more fun when we are doing our home exercises. (I am not a therapist—I am a parent with 4 kids—three have retained the Moro reflex.)Parental feedback: it is wonderful to have this as a resource. I have printouts from our therapist for a few exercises—black and white copies. They are useful. If our therapist had a manual like this to give, it would have been very reassuring and somehow more motivating than those black and white sheets that I have collected in a binder. I am excited for the possibility to use the authors future work for other of the reflexes we are working on.My boys had fun trying to master the “Pigeon Duck” exercise. It kept them engaged in their therapy lesson much longer than usual. ❤️❤️❤️Thank you!

This is a good resource for lay people and OTs. As an OT, I would prefer more scientific data and explanations - the WHY of each activity.

This is a great resource with clearly outlined activities. However it feels like most of it won’t work for my young child. It would be great to see an undated version of this with modifications or different activity ideas for really little kids.