Primitive Reflex Integration
Is Your Child Struggling — and You Can't Work Out Why?
If your child is struggling in ways that are hard to put your finger on — finding school more difficult than expected, seeming younger than their peers emotionally, tripping or bumping into things more than other children, or finding reading, writing, or concentration a real challenge — you've probably spent a lot of time searching for answers.
Retained primitive reflexes may be the piece of the puzzle you haven't found yet.
Sally Wade offers specialist retained primitive reflex assessments at her clinic near Guildford. If you'd like to book, or simply have a conversation first, you can book an appointment or call 01483 789109.
Could this be your child?
You might be in the right place if your child:
Trips, bumps into things, or struggles with balance and coordination
Has messy or slow handwriting despite effort and practice
Finds it hard to sit still or concentrate, especially at school
Struggles with reading — losing their place, reversing letters, tracking across the page
Is easily overwhelmed by noise, light, or busy environments
Has emotional responses that seem bigger than the situation warrants
Finds tasks that require both hands to work together particularly difficult
Wets the bed beyond the age when it would typically resolve
Has been described as immature, anxious, or "just not trying" — when you know that isn't true
These patterns don't always have an obvious explanation. They can look like attention difficulties, developmental delay, or emotional immaturity — and sometimes they're labelled as such. But underneath, retained primitive reflexes are often a significant contributing factor that goes unidentified.
What are retained primitive reflexes?
All babies are born with a set of automatic movements called primitive reflexes — things like the startle response, the rooting reflex, and the grasping reflex. These are essential in early infancy, but they're designed to be temporary. As the brain matures in the first year of life, they should be integrated and replaced by more refined, voluntary movement.
When this integration doesn't happen fully, the retained reflexes continue to interfere with how a child moves, learns, and regulates their emotions — often in ways that are subtle enough to go unnoticed for years.
This isn't a sign that something is fundamentally wrong with your child's brain. It's a sign that the nervous system needs some support to complete a developmental process it didn't finish — and that support is available.
Why come to Sally?
Sally Wade is a registered osteopath with over 15 years' experience and a specialist interest in paediatric care. She has worked with babies, children, and teenagers across a wide range of developmental concerns, and understands both the physical and neurological factors that affect how children move and develop.
As an osteopath, Sally's approach to retained reflexes is distinctive: she looks at the whole picture — the musculoskeletal restrictions that can interfere with neurological integration, the birth history that often underlies these patterns, and the specific reflexes that are still active — and treats the physical factors that make integration harder, not just the symptoms.
She also works collaboratively. If your child is already seeing another professional — a SENCO, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, or a movement specialist — Sally is happy to liaise and support a joined-up approach.
Over 170 Google reviews at 5.0 stars. Parents consistently describe Sally's clinic as calm, thorough, and genuinely child-friendly — a place where children feel safe and parents feel heard.
What happens at an assessment?
The case history - your appointment begins with a thorough conversation — covering your child's birth, their early developmental milestones, what you've noticed at home and at school, and what's brought you in today.
The physical assessment - Sally will carry out a gentle, non-invasive assessment to identify which reflexes remain active and how they are affecting your child's movement and function. For older children, this involves some simple movement tasks — walking, balance, coordination tests — that your child will usually find straightforward and unthreatening. Younger children are assessed at a pace and in a way that suits them.
The treatment - following the assessment we will discuss the best course of treatment for your child. This may involve hands-on osteopathic treatment to addresses the physical and musculoskeletal factors — particularly tension in the neck, skull, and upper spine — that can interfere with normal reflex integration. We will also go through what reflexes are unintegrated and create a plan to help integrate these fully.
The home programme - you'll leave with a clear explanation of what was found and a set of specific, simple movement exercises to do at home daily. These exercises are gentle and usually take around 10 minutes a day — they work by replicating the movement patterns the brain should have laid down in early infancy, helping the nervous system complete the integration process.
How many sessions? Most children are seen for an initial assessment followed by 3–5 follow-up appointments over the course of a few months, depending on their age and how many reflexes are retained. We will give you a realistic expectation after the first session — we will never recommend more sessions than we genuinely think are needed.
Ready to book?
If any of this sounds familiar and you'd like to find out whether retained primitive reflexes might be relevant for your child, the next step is a simple one.
Or call Sally directly on 01483 789109 — she's always happy to have a brief phone conversation before you commit to booking, to help you decide whether an appointment is the right next step.
You can also read more about osteopathy for babies and children and cranial osteopathy at the clinic.
““Sally was incredibly thorough and took the time to really understand what had been going on with our son. After just a few sessions and doing the daily exercises at home, his teacher commented unprompted that he seemed more settled and focused in class. We wish we’d found her sooner.””
““We’d been going round in circles for two years with different professionals, all saying slightly different things. Sally was the first person who looked at the whole picture and gave us something concrete to work with. The difference in our daughter has been remarkable.””
““My son had always struggled with handwriting and coordination. His teachers assumed he just wasn’t trying. After Sally’s assessment it was clear there was a physical reason behind it — and once we started addressing that, things started to click into place.””