Not just about Nursery Rhymes

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Not just about Nursery Rhymes

• Baby Development
• A holistic and compassionate approach to Swimming
  Teaching

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Balanced!!!

• First 3 years vital
• Experiences child exposed to
• 18 months have same neural connections as an
  adult
• 6 year olds have four times greater
• Brain spring clean at adolescence

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The Brain
HIGHER BRAIN
Postural Reflexes
LIMBIC (Emotional Brain)
Primitive Reflexes
REPTILIAN BRAIN
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Primitive Reflexes

• Survival
• Stereotypical
• Sequential
• Inhibited during 1st year
• May be retained
• May re-occur

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Retained Primitive Reflexes

• Some remain throughout life Blinking
• Absence may indicate damage to CNS
• C Section Babies
• Brain Injury Cerebral Palsy
• Stroke may cause re-occurrence
• Degenerative disease Multiple Sclerosis

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Spinal Development
STA Conference 2008
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Pros Cons of Back to Sleep

• Decrease in SIDS?
• Reluctance for tummy time
• Increase in Plagiocephaly
• Development delay

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In our enthusiasm to eradicate SIDS in the 0.2
of infants who are potential victims, we have
tended to overlook other relative risks and
benefits of the supine vs the prone position in
the 99.8 of infants who will not succumb to
SIDS.Doman G, Doman J, (2006), How Smart is
Your Baby, 249
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Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex(TLR)

• Head to Toe development
• Basis for gaining control of neck muscles
• Some TLR control by 6 weeks
• Inhibition can lead to postural problems

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Spinal Galant

• Birthing Reflex
• Gradual inhibition over first 9 months
• Retention can cause fidgeting Ants in the
  Pants

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Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex(ATNR)

• Works in conjunction with Spinal Galant
• Allows for breathing (on tummy)
• Facilitates early reaching
• Retention can lead to difficulties crossing
  mid-line plus swimming - frontcrawl

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Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex(STNR)

• Bridging Reflex
• Allows Opposite Movements between Top Bottom
• Develops Sight
• Precedes Creeping
• Difficulty with copying from board
• Difficulty with forward rolls and breastroke

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Palmer Reflex

• Grasp reflex
• 11 weeks in utero
• Inhibited by 2-3 months
• Replaced by pincer grasp
• Retained inability to oppose fingers
• Lack of Fine Motor Skills

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Moro Reflex

• 9-12 weeks in Utero
• Reaction to sudden imbalance or frightening
  stimulus
• Fight or Flight
• Replaced by Adult Startle Reflex

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Inhibition of the Startle Reflex

• Pulling back of the head
• Habituation
• Primacy
• Think of the journey not the end result!

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Songs Rhymes

• Helps to develop
• Language
• Attention
• Orientation
• Sound Discrimination
• Memory

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Are You in Your Right Mind?
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Singing Babies

• Melody recognition Right Hemisphere
• Vocabulary storing Left Hemisphere
• Parentese
• Essential for development of reading
• Sounding Out

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LET YOUR HEART

• RULE YOUR HEAD

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• The affairs of the heart are directly connected
  to the brain and its the hearts natural
  intelligence that must be unfolded for the brain
  to operate with greater efficiency.
• Chilton Pearce J, (1994), Evolutions End

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Heart Intelligence

• Being in Heart
• Connections between the Heart Limbic Centre
• Frontal Lobe Emotional Intelligence
• Conditioning Reptilian Brain
• Compassion Emotional Brain

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• .the three-year-old is not an incomplete
  five-year-old, but a complete, total and whole
  three year old. If a child is given all the
  nurturing to be here as a three year old theyll
  be the perfect five year old later on, and so
  on.
• Joseph Chilton Pearce

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Teach with Compassion

• Teaching with
• FUN
• SUNSHINE
• LOVE

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Sources of Information

• Chamley C et al, (2005), Developmental Anatomy
  Physiology of Children
• Chilton Pearce J, (1992), Evolutions End
• Doman G, Doman J, (2006), How Smart is Your Baby
• Goddard Blythe S, (2004), The Well Balanced Child
• Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology,
  www.inpp.org.uk