The Palmer Reflex is when the baby grasps on to your finger or pinky when placed in the baby’s hand. If this reflex has been retained and not integrated, the following manifestations occur:
* difficulty with fine motor tasks such as cutting or stringing beads
* poor pencil grip, poor manual dexterity, poor posture when writing
* Fatigue with writing and messy work
* opening and closing the mouth while using hands to cut, write, etc. as well as drooling with fine motor tasks
* Speech articulation is difficult because the mouth and hands have a neural connection that affects movements of the mouth and speech.
Strategies to integrate the palmer reflex include the following:
* tactile/ sensory play involving play dough, sand, etc.
* fine motor activities involving both hands such as stringing beads, cutting, finger puppets
* multi-sensory processing; using hands and mouth simultaneously such as crawling while blowing a cotton ball
* whole hand grasp and finger taps; squeezing a ball with the thumb and each alternating finger
These activities can be done at home simply by practicing as the opportunity arises. There are videos on you tube that can demonstrate these strategies as well. We will be discussing the Moro Reflex in the next post.
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