#149 - The Palmar Grasp Reflex

Today’s episode is about another primitive reflex: the palmar grasp reflex. 

Primitive reflexes impact so many things! Be sure to check out our 5-episode series on primitive reflexes (#100-104), as we continue our mission to get this information out there to everyone! 

The palmar grasp reflex happens when pressure is put on an infant’s palm & they reflexively curl their fingers to grasp whatever is in their palm. 

You’ll hear about all things related to palmar grasp reflex, including 3 key related learning disabilities, when it emerges & integrates normally, what happens when it doesn't, and how it correlates to speech & feeding. 

We also discuss potential reasons why it doesn’t integrate & end off the episode with loads of different activities to help your kiddos integrate their reflexes & assist in their development. Tune in & enjoy!

If you want to become an expert on Primitive Reflexes, check out our Retained Primitive Reflex Integration Training!

Key Points From This Episode:

• What the palmar grasp reflex looks like.
• Hear about 3 key terms: dyslexia, dysgraphia, & dyscalculia.
• When the palmar grasp emerges & integrates.
• Learn about the integration & development of the grasp as the baby ages.  
• What happens when the palmar grasp reflex isn’t integrated at the expected age.
• The potential correlation with speech issues; the relationship between hand & mouth.
• Overflow associated movements into the mouth during fine motor tasks, & opposite hand movements during novel or complex tasks.
• The correlation between the palmar grasp reflex, the rooting reflex, & feeding.
• Some activities to try if you think your kiddos palmar grasp reflex hasn't integrated.

Be sure to check out the show notes on our blog at  Harkla.Co/Podcast.

Brought To You By Harkla

This podcast is brought to you by Harkla.  Our mission at Harkla is to help those with special needs live happy and healthy lives. We accomplish this through high-quality sensory products, child development courses.

Podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla with the discount code "sensory". Head to Harkla.co/sensory to start shopping now.

Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Harkla
All Things Sensory on Instagram
All Things Sensory on Facebook
Harkla Blog Post: What are Primitive Reflexes
Harkla Blog Post: The Palmar Grasp Reflex
Primitive Reflex Podcast Series
Kathy Johnson on LinkedIn
Pyramid of Potential

Transcript

Rachel: 0:01

Hey there. I'm Rachel.

Jessica: 0:02

And I'm Jessica. And this is all things sensory by Harkla. Together, we're on a mission to help children and families, therapists, and educators live happy, healthy lives.

Rachel: 0:11

We dive into all things sensory, special needs, occupational therapy, parenting, self care, and so much more. In each episode, we share raw, honest, fun ideas, and strategies for everyone to implement into daily life.

Jessica: 0:24

Thank you so much for joining us.

Rachel: 0:28

Hey, everyone, we have some super exciting news to share with you today.

Jessica: 0:33

So April is autism awareness month. So we at Harkla are celebrating by giving you at 15% off your entire order with Harkla.

Rachel: 0:42

So we want to celebrate everyone, whoever you are, by sharing this discount with you. You can grab a swing, a compression vest, a weighted blanket, supplements, a course.

Jessica: 0:56

Anything from Harkla basically.

Rachel: 0:59

and enjoy that 50% off because we rarely give that big of a discount.

Jessica: 1:04

Now the sale only runs from the 19th through the 23rd of April. So make sure you go to Harkla.co and get it before the sale is over.

Rachel: 1:15

Okay, Happy Shopping and happy celebrating. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of All Things sensory by Harkla, you are listening to your good friends, Rachel and Jessica.

Jessica: 1:27

We're so excited you're here and today we are going to talk about a primitive reflex which we talk about them a lot because we're obsessed with them because they impact so many things. And we did an entire like five episode podcast series on primitive reflexes a while back.

Rachel: 1:52

Yeah, we're on a mission to spread the word to get this information out there to everyone. Everyone like doctors, school teachers, therapists, everyone, parents forgot parents, we want you to know about these as well. So maybe before you even listen to this episode, if you haven't already listened to our five episode series on the primitive reflexes, which was like, episodes 100 through 105. Go back and listen to those ones first, and then come back and listen to today's episode.

Jessica: 2:27

Yeah, so those episodes, we talked about the Moro, the TLR, ATNR, STNR, and the Spinal, which, if you don't know what those are, then you're gonna go listen to those episodes so you do know what they are. But we did not address the palmar reflex because at the time, neither Rachel or I knew a lot about it. We hadn't done any courses on it. We had done our research on it. But we knew a little bit about it.

Rachel: 2:57

We knew the basics, yes! We knew the basics, but not enough to really, like make a difference for you guys to like, to give you enough information to go do something with it.

Jessica: 3:09

Yeah. So basically, the palmar reflex is a reflex that infants have and it looks like this: you put pressure on an infant's palm and they will reflexively curl their fingers to grasp whatever is in their palm. And I mean, it's it's a death grip. I think about these infants that grab your hair, your finger, your clothes, and they won't let go. That's the palmer reflex.

Rachel: 3:36

Yes. So that's really all we learned in school, unfortunately, was just that. Like, this is the reflex, this is what happens when you stimulate it, and good luck. But Jessica actually took a more in depth course on dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, and she was telling me all about it. I have to take myself, but she shared a lot of information with me and it was by Kathy Johnson. She's wonderful. Yes, she has lots of resources that we've looked at in the past. Very, very knowledgeable.

Jessica: 4:16

So really quick, we'll just talk about those three terms from the course that I took dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. Because a lot of people don't know what those are. I mean, we're pretty familiar with dyslexia. I think that's a term that gets thrown around a lot, but the other two really don't. So dyslexia is a learning disability that's affected by the way the brain processes written material, causing people to read at significantly lower levels than people of their same age and intelligence. So these are the kids or the adults that really, really struggle with reading and writing.

Rachel: 4:54

Yes. Now dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects the person's handwriting and their ability to complete fine motor skills. So these are the kiddos or adults who are going to really really struggle with handwriting, spatial awareness, and things like spelling.

Jessica: 5:09

And then dyscalculia is a learning disability that affects a person's ability to understand numbers and to learn math facts. So this includes challenges with time management and sequencing events. So what I learned was that primitive reflexes play a huge role in those three learning disabilities, go figure, because primitive reflexes affect everything in our lives, basically. But one of the main reflexes that Kathy Johnson talked about was the palmar grasp reflex and how it specifically impacts dysgraphia, which is the learning disability that affects handwriting.

Rachel: 5:49

Okay, so here we are, let's learn about the palmar reflex, what it affects and what you can do to help get it integrated if it isn't integrated already.

Jessica: 5:58

So the palmar grasp reflex emerges at about 11 weeks in utero and it should only remain active until about two to four months of age.

Rachel: 6:09

Yeah, I'm thinking about Tripps right now and yeah, no, he doesn't have it anymore. I haven't tested it. But I've tested it since the very beginning, when he did have it. So I'll have to do it again and see what it looks like.

Jessica: 6:24

But you can tell because like he's able to let go of things.

Rachel: 6:27

He opens and closes his hands with fairly good control at six months old. But if I stroke his hand or put pressure in his hand, I'll have to see what he does. So with that being said, it's activated whenever something causes pressure, touches, or strokes the palm of the hand, causing those fingers to close around the object.

Jessica: 6:53

So super interesting. in infancy, the hands and the mouth are directly linked, which means that the palmar reflex is also activated when the infant is nursing or drinking from a bottle. And then because of this hand to mouth connection, this also relates back to the rooting reflex, which we're going to have to do a podcast episode on that in the future as well.

Rachel: 7:15

Yeah, we are.

Jessica: 7:17

It's connected. S

Rachel: 7:18

Say that one more time?

Jessica: 7:20

It's all connected

Rachel: 7:21

It is. So it's all connected. Yes. And we will talk about that overflow in a little bit. How it connects when people or kids stick out their tongues while they're working on things as like a method of focus. So we'll get into that next. But as most of us know, babies explore the world using their hands and mouth. I mean, they immediately put things in their mouths, mouth their hands, they just want to learn by exploring objects with their mouth. So by four months old, the baby should be able to grasp an object and bring it to their mouth. And that's the same time that the palmar reflex should be integrated or just not there anymore.

Jessica: 8:08

And then at the same time, the infant begins to intentionally reach for items. So like when you were talking about Tripp, he's six months old, and he's intentionally reaching for objects.

Rachel: 8:21

It's just so crazy to like, watch them grow, like to watch them go through this developmental sequence like they're wired to do this, it just blows my mind. You know? It's crazy.

Jessica: 8:33

I Love it.

Rachel: 8:34

So by the age of seven months, the child should be learning to understand how to more intentionally reach and grasp items, and will be and that will begin the development of those more refined fine motor skills like the pincer grasp and the raking grasp.

Jessica: 8:51

Yeah, so then what happens if the palmar reflex is not integrated by around that four month period? Like Rachel just said, it has a direct correlation to the development of fine motor skills. So being able to grasp small items with that pincer grasp, which is index finger to thumb. This is going to impact future handwriting skills, and also self care, including self feeding and dressing skills.

Rachel: 9:18

Yes, there is a potential correlation to speech issues due to the relationship between the hand and mouth. Like we had said earlier, the rooting reflex and the palmar reflex are directly connected. And like we also mentioned earlier, overflow associated movements into the mouth during fine motor tasks. So your child is writing and focusing on the task and they're sticking their tongue out or they're pushing their tongue into their cheek of their mouth. And we might also notice tactile hypersensitivity, specific to the hands, which your child might avoid, like sensory bins, messy play, things like that.

Jessica: 9:57

I was also just thinking to that there's you're probably going to see some overflow into the opposite hand. So, for example, if a child is completing a task with their dominant hand, you're going to look over and the opposite and the non dominant hand is probably going to be doing some overflow some associated movements as well,

Rachel: 10:18

Especially if it's something that they have to concentrate on really hard and if it's a novel task. Like my favorite example, are those those Chinese, the Chinese Baoding Balls, where you have to like rotate them in a circle around each other.

Jessica: 10:36

I love those.

Rachel: 10:38

So those will cause most likely a lot of overflow in the opposite hand when a child is first learning to do that, and then as they get the hang of it, they should be disassociating that. We just want to take a minute and talk to you about our company Harkla. Our mission at Harkla is to help those with special needs live happy, healthy lives. Not only do we accomplish this through the podcast, but we also have therapy products, easy to follow digital courses, and the Harkla sensory club to try to bring holistic care to you and your family.

Jessica: 11:08

Listeners of the All Things Sensory podcast get 10% off their first purchase at Harkla with the discount code sensory. We'd recommend checking out some of our best sellers like the compression sensory swing, weighted blankets, or our course on sensory diets.

Rachel: 11:23

And here's the best part 1% of each sale gets donated to the University of Washington Autism Center to support autism research and fun scholarships to families in need to receive in clinic therapy for their child.

Jessica: 11:35

Learn more about Harkla and all we have to offer at harkla.co. That's h a r k L A dot C O. And don't forget to use the discount code sensory to get 10% off your first purchase. That's s e n s o r y for 10% off.

Rachel: 11:57

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Jessica: 12:04

You really can't beat that.

Rachel: 12:05

No,

Jessica: 12:06

You can't. Okay, let's get back to the show. So speaking of those Chinese medicine balls, we are going to give you some ideas of things you can do with your kiddo if you think they have a retained palmar reflex. But first, we do want to talk a little bit about the reasons why this reflex might not be integrated, why it might not go away.

Rachel: 12:28

So unfortunately, there isn't a like one size fits all answer for this question. But if you go back to our primitive reflex podcast series, we talk about a ton of different reasons why those reflexes are most likely retained and a lot of them apply to this one as well. Toxins in utero, trauma, not enough floor time, the fetal alcohol syndrome, what else is there that I'm missing?

Jessica: 12:59

I was just thinking going along with not enough floor time, being in a container for the majority of waking hours. If you've listened to our podcasts before our stance on containers, and they're not bad. It's just how we use them. So just making sure that your baby, your infant is getting enough movement throughout their day, they're not in a container the majority of their day, I think tummy time is gonna play a huge role in the palmer reflex.

Rachel: 13:27

I was just gonna say, Yes, tummy time is great. They get a lot of input to their hands, which we will talk about in those activities. But you just have to, I always like to go back to like biologically, when we were cave people, what what were babies doing back then to integrate these reflexes? You know, what, what kinds of products were they using back then, and they weren't really using products because there was nothing available. So they were on the floor, they were being carried, and they were just hanging out. So I think that's kind of important to keep in mind is simplicity is the highest form of elegance and that's oftentimes the best way to naturally integrate these primitive reflexes.

Jessica: 14:12

For sure. I was just thinking because of the correlation between the palmar reflex and the rooting reflex. I'm going to say that maybe another potential cause of the Palmer grasp not being integrated could also be feeding challenges. So an infant who isn't able to latch properly, who struggles to gain weight because they're not eating enough, maybe they have a tongue tie. All of these different factors that are related to feeding could also impact this palmar grasp reflex.

Rachel: 14:46

Yeah, things like failure to thrive or having a g-tube or they're not going through those normal natural movements and that normal developmental sequence like we talked about earlier. If they're missing that, whether it's a medical reason reason, I mean, you have to give your child a feeding tube if that's the need to survive. But it's important to be aware of these coinciding reflexes that might not get integrated, if we're not going through those normal patterns. So obviously, we're going to do what we need to do to keep our child alive and safe and functioning. But keep this in mind to say, oh, you know, like Tripp, he had a tongue tie and lip tight. Maybe we need to do more of these activities to work on what we're gonna talk about here next, but it's just something to be aware of.

Jessica: 15:33

Yeah. Alright, so the reason you're all here to find out what to do, what are our suggestions? What do we what do we want to do for our kids?

Rachel: 15:43

Yes, so of course, the first thing is weight bearing tasks with palms open and flat on the ground. So for older kiddos, things like animal walks, bear walks, crab walks, wheelbarrow walks, rolling over a therapy ball in prone, so like walking your hands out, into like a plank position over the ball, and then walking back. For babies just tummy time, lots of different textures to the hands when they are babies.

Jessica: 16:14

So another thing that you can do to help with integrating the palmar reflex is sequential finger touching. This is going to be where you touch the tip of your thumb to the tip of each of your fingers. gently tapping, like that's the key is to make sure you're doing it very gently, like you're barely tapping. And then also making sure that your fingers make an O shape. And this is going to be pretty challenging for a lot of our kiddos who have low tone in their hands, but it's a good one to work on. You want to make sure you do both hands. You can also try it with eyes closed. Make it interesting.

Rachel: 16:51

I will add that you know it's important to do those O fingers, what we typically see are like flat fingers like the sign language letter G. So just like like you're almost pinching something so kids will have those flat like duck mouth type fingers instead of the nice. O fingers. I have to explain it because it's a podcast. No one can see what we're doing right now.

Jessica: 17:17

No, I just didn't imagining a duck mouth. Accurate Description.

Rachel: 17:22

Thank you. I was gonna say how was it?

Jessica: 17:25

Accurate.

Rachel: 17:28

Okay, so sequential finger touching that's a good one. Oh, with things like chewing gum or sucking on hard candy, or like Laffy Taffy, or saltwater taffy during those fine motor tasks can help to decrease those associated movements like sticking out your tongue, pushing your tongue into your cheek, and things like that.

Jessica: 17:50

Yep. Another really good one is to crumple a piece of paper with just one hand. So this is really going to get those intrinsic hand muscles of the palm working, it's gonna get a lot of tactile input to the palm as well. Make sure you switch hands when you do this one do with both hands.

Rachel: 18:10

Yes. Now we kind of talked about this with those Chinese medicine balls, about making those circles around each other going in both directions while you're holding those balls. Like maybe we'll do an Instagram video about this one so people can see what it looks like because it's hard to explain.

Jessica: 18:27

And you can do this. I mean, you could do this with just regular marbles. I think the trick is making sure the marbles are large enough because you can't do it with just small marble.

Rachel: 18:35

No. The big ones like the big shooter marbles work the best.

Jessica: 18:38

Yeah.

Rachel: 18:39

So another one that's super fun is like making a snowball. So whether or not you have real snow, if you have fake snow, if you have I actually made a sensory bin out of like the insides of diapers.

Jessica: 18:58

Oh, I hated that feeling of that stuff.

Rachel: 19:02

But you can make a good snowball with that, right?

Jessica: 19:05

Yes, but it was so slimy.

Rachel: 19:08

And the other one is wet cotton balls. You can make a good snowball with wet cotton balls. So those are good ones to build those arches to strengthen the hands and to really work on that palmar grasp reflex.

Jessica: 19:22

All right, so another one is sensory bins, we love sensory bins. You can do sensory bins with any tactile medium that you can come up with. You can use cotton balls, you can use beans, rice, grass, dirt, mud, just get some sensory bins going, have different ones each week.

Rachel: 19:43

Just rotate it like toy rotations, sensory bin rotations. Love it. Okay, multi sensory processing tasks using hands and the mouth simultaneously. So one of our favorites is like crawling on the floor while blowing a cotton ball, whether you're blowing with your mouth or through a straw. So things like that are really helpful.

Jessica: 20:08

Such a good one. Ooh, another good one is going to be using playdough and use a rolling pin. Really like neading the playdough. This could also be a good one, like, if you're making cookies, yeah know, make some cookies and get your hands in there.

Rachel: 20:25

Definitely make it functional.

Jessica: 20:28

Like when you're when you're rolling the playdough, you want to I mean, you know, you have the handles to roll the playdough. But I think like putting your hands on top of the rolling pin pushing while you roll all the way across your hands, if that makes sense.

Rachel: 20:41

Yeah, it does. Not using the like spinning handles.

Jessica: 20:46

Yes.

Rachel: 20:47

Yeah. I love that. Okay, is there anything else you can think of?

Jessica: 20:52

That's really only that. Yeah, I mean, jJust a lot for the palmar.

Rachel: 20:57

Yeah, just think abut weight bearing, tactile input, oral input. Like those are kind of the takeaways for this Palmer grasp reflex.

Jessica: 21:08

Yeah. All right.

Rachel: 21:11

Okay, good deal. I'm glad we did this episode, I think it's going to go nicely with the rest of our primitive reflex episodes. And as always, if you'll have questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Jessica: 21:28

If you have a minute, you can leave us a review on iTunes, because that helps us reach more people. Send us a DM on Instagram at All Things Sensory podcast, take a screenshot and let us know you're listening.

Rachel: 21:42

Yeah, we always love to, like read those reviews. And I was just pulling them up. And it's like, it's so awesome. You know, this person said, great source for OTs, you know, as an outpatient OT this podcast is everything. Awesome!

Jessica: 21:59

Score!

Rachel: 22:00

Yes! So thank you guys. We appreciate that. Okay, if you need anything from us, you know how to get a hold of us. And we will be back with another episode next week.

Jessica: 22:12

Okay, bye.

Rachel: 22:15

Thank you so much for listening to All Things Sensory by Harkla. If you want more information on anything we mentioned in the show, head over to harkla.co/podcast. To get all of the shownotes.

Jessica: 22:27

We always have the show notes and links plus full transcripts to make following along as easy as possible for everyone. If you have follow up questions, the best place to ask those is in the comments on the show notes or message us on our Instagram account, which is at Harkla underscore family. If you just search Harkla, you'll find us.

Rachel: 22:47

Like we mentioned before our podcast listeners get 10% off their first order at Harkla. Whether it's for one of our digital courses, one of our sensory swings, the discount code sensory will save you 10%. That code is sensory, head over to harkla.co/sensory to use that code right now so you don't forget.

Jessica: 23:10

We're so excited to work together to help create competent kids all over the world and work towards a happier healthier life.

Rachel: 23:16

All right, we'll talk to you guys next week. Just a friendly reminder, this is general information related to occupational therapy, pediatrics and sensory integration. We do not know you or your child therefore, we do not know any specific needs. Therefore you should always refer back to your pediatrician and occupational therapists for more information