Ep 61 - Sensory & Primitive Reflex Integration Outdoors with Rachel Harrington & Jessica Hill
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Laura Park Figueroa: Welcome to Therapy in the Great Outdoors, the podcast where we explore the business and practice of nature based pediatric therapy of all kinds. If you're an outdoor loving pediatric practitioner in the fields of occupational, physical, or speech therapy, social work, or mental health, this podcast will help you start and grow a successful nature based practice or program.
I am the ever honest, always 100 percent real. You'll hear it all on this podcast. Dr. Laura Park Figueroa. I'm a pediatric OT with over 20 years of experience and I run a thriving nature based practice with profitable locations in two different states and multi six figures in revenue. I also host the free online community at therapyinthegreatoutdoors.
com to help you pursue your nature based therapy dreams too. Are you ready to take action on those dreams? Let's jump in.
Welcome back to Therapy in the Great Outdoors. Today we're going to talk about all things sensory, which is the name of Jessica and Rachel's podcast because Rachel Harrington and Jessica Hill are here. We're going to talk about how nature can support regulation of the nervous system, how you can incorporate outdoor activities into a sensory diet for your clients, as well as some ways to incorporate primitive reflex integration activities into outdoor sessions, because reflex integration seems all the rage right now.
So we're going to talk about that as well. So if you don't already
know, this dynamic duo.
They are truly a dynamic duo. They are Harkla's in house certified OT assistants and certified primitive reflex clinical specialists. Harkla is a company that provides products, courses, and community for sensory autism and ADHD families. So Rachel and Jessica have been working with kids for over nine years in outpatient settings and they are. Truly geniuses at creating really easy to digest actionable content that families and therapists can use. So before we hit record here, I was saying, you guys just do such a good job of meeting the needs of therapists, but also making it in language that families can understand.
And it's just, Amazing. And again, their podcast is All Things Sensory y'all probably already know about that if you're listening to this podcast, but if you don't, please go over and listen. It is full of tons of great information for any pediatric therapist. So welcome and Jessica. I'm so glad you're
Rachel & Jessica: Thank you so much. What an intro. Thank you.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yes, I'm so excited. So one thing we touched on again before hitting record is that this podcast is for pediatric therapists in general who want to take their work outdoors with children. So I think I want to start out with, because you guys are the experts here on sensory processing and all things self regulation.
Can we do a quick overview? of sensory processing for like our non OT listeners, because we know all of our OT friends went to graduate school and know this, but can you.
just tell us what Sensory processing. is?
Rachel & Jessica: Sensory processing. It's it's one of the coolest things. I'm obsessed with it. Jessica, we're just absolute, absolutely obsessed with it. If you think about it, we all have sensory systems. We're all sensory beings and we all have eight senses. So you think about the normal five that we all learned in elementary school, and then you have three hidden senses that are actually, in my opinion, some of the most important for regulation.
You have your sense of proprioception, which is your body awareness. Where your body is in space, and it really ties into that self regulation component. Then you have your vestibular system, which is your sense of movement. You have receptors in your inner ear that tells you where you are, head position changes, and things like that.
And then your interoceptive system, which honestly, this wasn't even taught to us in school. That's how like quickly change, right? And this is where, what's happening inside of your body. Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? Are you sick? Are you tired? How's your emotions?
And it connects into your emotional regulation, your emotional intelligence too.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yep.
Rachel & Jessica: So when we're looking at sensory processing, all eight of our senses have to be working efficiently. 24 7 in order for us to feel calm, regulated for us to be able to access the, higher level cognitive parts of our brain in order to do the things we need to do throughout our day.
And so that's where occupational therapy comes in because that's our job is to help our clients feel successful and do things that they want to do every day. And if their sensory system is dysregulated, if their sensory needs are not being met, or if they're receiving too much sensory input and they're overstimulated, they're going to be in a state of fight or flight.
They're going to be dysregulated and it's going to negatively impact their ability to get through their day.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. And I love how you guys explain it. And I agree that when I was in I went to OT school 25 years ago. So my 30 year high school reunion is this summer and I can't believe it. I feel like I'm 20. So I don't know.
Rachel & Jessica: Aged past 25.
Laura Park Figueroa: But when I was in school, we learned the seven, like the seven senses and we thought we were so great.
Cause we knew of perspective. proprioceptive and vestibular, but that interoception piece, I know that's been in recent years, like we're starting to think more about that. And it just makes so much sense because it's like, when you're anxious, your stomach hurts, like it's inside of you.
It's something that you actually, it's so tied in, how our inner body feels to our emotional state. Love it. Okay. Thank you for the little overview and let's dive in a little bit into Along those lines, I know we want to talk about the outdoors and activities outdoors incorporating them into a sensory diet.
And so I know our OTs are all familiar with that phrase, but let's Have you guys define what a sensory diet is too cause I know that's something we're going to get into in a little
Rachel & Jessica: Yeah, I think the term sensory diet, some people love it, some people don't necessarily love it. It's what we're familiar with, it makes sense in our brains, and so that's what we like to teach. But you could call it a sensory lifestyle, a sensory plan, but really it's a combination of specific sensory activities in a specific order in order to achieve a desired outcome.
appropriate adaptive response or an appropriate arousal level. So for a kiddo who is sensory seeking and they're bouncing off the walls, they're all over the place, touching and jumping and eating and doing all the things, we want to make sure that we're helping them meet their threshold, give them what they're seeking, and then organize their nervous system.
Or for a kiddo who is avoidant and sensory sensitive, we want to make sure that we're finding that balance of still giving them what they need, but we want But also organizing their highly sensitive sensory system with things like proprioception.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. Okay. So now that we have terms defined, let's talk about nature and the outdoors. So let's think about, I know there's so many directions we could go. I wonder if you guys could talk with us maybe a little bit about, do you think that, cause you work with a lot of like pediatric therapists that are, I would think mostly working in clinics or homes or traditional settings that we would work in as pediatric therapists. Are you seeing people start to incorporate more outdoor stuff into sensory diets? Is this something that is uncommon? Is it common? What are you guys seeing in the world out there? With the people you interact
Rachel & Jessica: I think in the clinic setting, we are often trying to get outside with our clients during our sessions. We just recently, the clinic that I work in, we just recently moved into a bigger building and our main treatment area has big windows throughout the whole room. So we're getting a lot of that natural light in during our treatment sessions, which is and then as therapists, and the, as the weather's getting nicer, we are trying to get outside more.
Let's take the chalk out and go draw on the sidewalk. Let's take some messy play and do the messy play outside instead of on the hard floor. Let's do some gardening activities. I'm thankful that I work in a place where the therapists are along that same line of let's get outside with our clients as much as possible.
I don't know if it's necessarily increasing or if it's less popular in other areas. I know that our area here in Idaho, we have several. clinics and programs that work with children and families to be outdoors more often. Yeah. And I think the only thing I'll add is that when we are helping to educate or teach about sensory diets and sensory diet activities, Generally in every sensory diet that we create or we teach about, it's, wake up in the morning and in your morning sensory diet, go outside, get the sunlight, take your sunglasses off, walk barefoot in the grass.
After school sensory diet, go climb a tree, ride a bike, dig a hole, play in the sandbox. So we try to incorporate teaching other therapists how to add those elements nature components into sensory diets for their clients, because, as obviously this is a nature podcast, the benefits are just huge.
And if we could have every session be outside, It would be game changing, right? And I think, too, it's very telling if we as clinicians can give these recommendations to the families and they actually try it and they come back later and they tell us, my child was so happy for an hour being outside. I thought it was going to be so hard.
But once we got outside and we went on a walk or we went to the park or we did this or that outside, they were just so happy and regulated. I can't believe how amazing it was, but it's once they see the proof, then they're able to understand why it's important and be able to implement it a little bit more.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. It feels so to me, logical common sense, right? It feels is what we're saying really that
innovative to just get kids outside? Yes, actually it is. Yeah.
But I do think that parents sometimes there's a really wonderful Instagram account, which I just, would recommend anyone listening to this podcast would probably be interested in it.
And you guys might too. It's called My Outdoorsy Mom, and she's just become a friend on Instagram. have Instagram friends nowadays. And she's a young mom who has, I think, two or three kids. And she, her whole account is about like how she gets outdoors with them. And one of The things that she talks about is At first it was really hard.
It was like to figure out what to do with them, right? So maybe let's talk about that a little bit. How can we as therapists help parents get the kids outdoors and give them things to do outdoors with their kids? So what types of things would you guys maybe be recommending as part of a sensory diet?
Let's get into some of the nuts and bolts of things that therapists could maybe recommend.
Rachel & Jessica: The first one that I always recommend is just go for a walk around the block. Like it doesn't have to be complex. It doesn't have to be for a long period of time, depending on where you live. You might have to go a little bit farther. You might have access to a park, but you don't even have to go to the park.
You could just go for a walk around the block and talk about the different things that you see. What flowers do you see? What plants do you see? Or if your child's non speaking or if they're very young, maybe you are doing all of the talking and the pointing. Or maybe it's a quiet walk. You don't even have to talk.
You can just walk. Yeah. Yeah. You don't even have to talk. Maybe just a quiet walk and you don't even necessarily engage in a lot of conversation. You're just. Going on a walk. Yeah. And I'll add to that. If you can have it be child led, like for me, I'm in the, early intervention type age range with my own personal kiddos that I have to with every day, but let it be child led, follow their lead.
They want to go this way. If they want to climb on the rocks, let them climb on the rocks. If they want to jump off of the grass, if they want to log roll down the hill, Let them explore and go at their pace because I feel like so often in a traditional clinic setting or just life in general, it's always go.
You're on my time. We're late. We're rushing. But when you're outside, take that opportunity to slow down and follow their lead and go at their pace. And if they want to pick up 47 rocks and put them in their pockets, check them out, count them, talk about the sizes. So it's just, yeah. Focus on letting it be child led and meet your child or meet your client wherever they're at their ability.
And I love that recommendation and I tell my clients this all the time that your child might be dysregulated because they feel like they have no control over their day, over their life. They are being told what to do all the time by all of these adults in their life. So if the outdoor time every day, the going on the walk, going to the park, or even just going to the backyard, if that is within their control and they're showing you how to do something and you are, instead of giving them instructions of what to do, you're just doing what they're doing.
You're following their lead. All of a sudden, they have a sense of autonomy and a sense of control over their life, and they're going to be regulated because of that. Yeah.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah.
I just, I'm reading a book I'm looking around cause I thought it was sitting right here, but I'm reading a book called goal setting and motivation and therapy or something like that. It was recommended at a physical therapy conference that I spoke at and I just was connected with someone and they showed it to me and I was like, I need to get that. And one of the things that talks about in the book is self determination theory. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, I'm totally speaking off the cuff. I don't know if I'm gonna remember all of it, but it was the three components that a person needs to be self motivated to do something where it's A, R, and C, it's autonomy. Relatedness and competence. I think we're the three. So it's basically that autonomy piece is what our kids like. It just made me think of that when you were saying the child is controlled all the time, and that's a large part of what a lot of nature based therapists are seeking to give back to kids in our therapy sessions is this sense of you have autonomy here. Not the whole time. We do make that
Track 1: Yeah.
Laura Park Figueroa: have some structure, right? But that idea of them being autonomous and being able to make the choices, so much of kids lives are just structured by adults. And it's great for parents, too. I love that suggestion, too, for parents, because I think A lot of times as therapists, we can get stuck in a lot of the technical stuff and we forget that everything goes back.
Again, self determination theory, that relatedness piece of that co, co regulation with the child and just connecting with them is so powerful. That's like ultimately the foundation of all sensory regulation, I think is that connectedness to their caregiver, right? Or to the parent. So I love that.
Rachel & Jessica: Yep. And anytime your child gets to lead the activity, they are connecting with you in a whole new way, and they feel, it builds that trust. When you can ask the child questions and engage in play how they want to play, then you're building trust with them. Yes. I
laura-park-figueroa_1_04-03-2024_133314: therapists to do. Because I remember when my kids were young, we'd go on hikes and my husband is not a nature person. I've been thinking about doing a whole podcast just on this Hey, you can still love nature even if your partner, I
get so depressed when I see a lot of the, I We're outdoorsy, our whole family goes, and I'm like, yeah outdoorsy, but my whole family does not like the outdoors.
So what do we do with that? That's okay. It's okay. You can be yourself and you can still get your kids outdoors, even when your partner is not like fully on board. But I used to joke that, I digress, but he he used to be like, yeah, You guys get down from there. You guys be careful. You guys, and I'm like stop, just let them be like, let them be like, it's, they're not hurting any animal.
The tree's going to be fine if they climb it. He just was wound up in nature. So he's better now he's mellowed with age, but but yeah, I think it's a good example of how parents might struggle with that kind of child led letting them have that
Rachel & Jessica: think that's it's so eye opening for parents to have that, self, as to thinking about during their day, like how often am I telling my child to be careful or to get down or to stop doing that? If you keep track, one day, And you think about it, it'll probably be more than you realize. But I was just thinking, one other activity I'd love to recommend is that risky play outside, set up some old tires and some wood and some climbing structures and rocks and let the kids build something and fall down and get hurt and get back up and problem solving that risky play is just something that kids aren't.
Doing or getting access to as often anymore. Yeah, and I pa as parents, we're all parents, so we all understand this. We don't want our child to get hurt because it like hurts us when our child is hurt. But if we can help teach them how to engage in risky play. And feel confident in their bodies and we can let them know, I'm here for you.
If you need help, I'm here for you. If you do get hurt, maybe I'm going to stand underneath you while you climb the tree and I'm going to push my fear deep down and just tell my child, okay, you climb the tree until as you feel safe and I'm here, if you need me. And if they do fall, maybe you can catch them,
Laura Park Figueroa: or Break their fall,
Rachel & Jessica: Break their fall, right? But man, it just builds confidence in our children when we can allow them to do that risky play and then be there for them if they need us to co regulate.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else that we should think about with like sensory diets and outdoors? I think it would be great if more clinic based and school based and home based therapists were thinking outdoors as far as what they could incorporate, but that maybe isn't our audience here.
Those are, there may be some people that aren't doing nature based work yet,
Are there any other ideas that come to
Rachel & Jessica: yeah, I was just thinking any therapist, whatever therapy world you're involved in, brainstorm and see if you can get outside for the first five to 10 minutes of the session. Can the first part your session be a walk around the building? Can the first five minutes be, sitting outside in the sunshine or in the rain or doing some yoga on the sidewalk, even if it's raining, even if it's cold outside, It's still going to be beneficial.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah, my one of my therapists in my practice, she started this thing with her kids called get grounded time. So it's like the first five minutes of the session, right? And I think as therapists, we need to be okay with going a little slower in our practice. Like I'm a very, you guys are high energy too. I can relate like you're it's good, right?
It's good to be high energy with kids and it's good to bring high energy to the work you do. But for me as a therapist, when I'm with kids, I feel this pressure that I need to use every single minute to be therapeutic to the maximum value or whatever. And it's so good to, I think for all of us to just step back and be like, Actually. The same way that mindfulness is good for us or stillness is good for us, it can be really good for kids in our sessions to just take five minutes to notice things outside. It's just simple.
Rachel & Jessica: And just to breathe fresh air. You think about the schedules today, in, in our lifestyle and it's, you go from one, one square to another square, right? And how often are we outside and looking at the clouds and, getting our heads into different positions and jumping and moving.
And, sometimes Those small little changes make such a big difference and it just takes a moment of recognizing, Oh my gosh, my client hasn't seen the sun today. Let's change that. Let's go outside. Let's talk. Let's do our, let's do our session outside. Let's go stomp in some rain puddles.
Let's, still modulating sensory input that way. You still have to use the right amount of force and process the wind and the rain and everything. So there's so many opportunities. You just, it just takes a little bit more effort to be creative in your approach.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yes. Yeah, it does. It requires like thinking a little bit out, outside box, which is hilarious because we're talking about outside. I didn't mean that to be like a, do they call that? We have to think outside, outside the box. So let's pivot a little bit because I really do want to talk about primitive reflexes because I, this was just emerging as a thing, similar to the interoception. piece, right? Of sensory integration. Primitive reflexes were becoming more mainstream.
I guess when I, right around when I was starting, like maybe 10 years ago, is that kind of what you guys think? I think it was maybe 10 years ago
Rachel & Jessica: We like got a really quick overview of them when we were in school, which was 10, 11 years ago. But in our first job setting, we were at a pediatric clinic and the, our mentor, the owner of the practice taught us about like actually functionally addressing and testing for the primitive reflexes.
And that's when it really clicked for us like, Oh, okay. We learned about these in school. Now this is actually what they mean and how they impact a kiddo functionally.
Laura Park Figueroa: I'm going to be totally honest. I have never tested a kid for primitive reflexes. I don't know much about it. Like I was, I think I saw someone demo it at a conference I was at once. The only thing, so I'll share this little story with you guys and then you can give me your thoughts.
I will love to hear what you think. Basically when I heard about primitive reflexes. I think I got some like book or something on them. I don't even remember where it came from. I don't still have it. I don't think. And I tested my son who's the youngest. He was probably, this was, he's 13 now. So he's probably six at the time.
It was a while ago. And he is. A very motorically advanced child. Like he just always, he's the youngest of three. So he's just always watched them and toddled along after them and just always been very athletic and very physically active, and in a good way, like very coordinated. It's like his gift. And it was so interesting because I tested him for the ATNR and it looked like his ATNR was retained. And I was like, but you're totally functional, like in all ways. Like, how can it be that you have a retained ATNR if you are so functional? Like you're, Swinging a baseball and hitting things at the age of six.
I just it made me like, I don't get it. And I guess maybe kids can have retained reflexes and it not affect them at all. But I'm wondering, if you guys take that story and share what will about primitive reflexes, because I'm so interested to hear And maybe we should do a little orientation to primitive reflexes for anyone who has not heard of them.
I would just dove into the conversation, but so what are they and how can they impact function? And then maybe tell me what you think about kids still having them, but being relatively functional.
Rachel & Jessica: first I'm going to say that I have a very similar story to you, that my son, who is 10 years old,
Oh, cool.
also has a slightly retained ATNR. I haven't tested him recently, I think it's been about two years since I last tested him, but at the time, about two years ago, he had a slightly retained ATNR. He doesn't have any coordination issues, he's a great reader, writer, at age level for all of those.
cognitive activities, emotional regulation, he's doing well. So similar where I was like, Oh it's still there a little bit, but it's not impacting him functionally. And so we'll talk about what they are and then circle back. Let me add my personal antidote to this as well, because it's a good, it's a good opportunity to just have a review to think about as we're talking about it.
My husband, I tested his as an adult, and he also had a slightly retained ATNR, and my reasoning for testing him was because he struggles, he's always struggled with like left and right, so we'll be driving, he's turn left, and I'm like, you mean right? And he's yeah, but again, college athlete, functioning, doing well, but retained ATNR.
Slightly. Slightly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So why don't you okay. So what are primitive reflexes? We are all born with primitive reflexes. They are stereotypical movement that is directed from the brainstem and they are designed to keep an infant alive and start the development process. So most people are familiar with the startle reflex, the moro reflex, where baby is maybe sleeping and a sudden noise.
startled them and they jerk awake and then they cry. We're also often familiar with the ATNR reflex in infancy. It looks like the fencer pose where baby is laying on their back. They have their head turned and they go into this kind of fencer position with their arms.
The main ones. Or the palmar grasp reflex, that one is where you put your finger in baby's palm and they grab onto you or they grab onto your hair and it's a death grip, like you cannot get them to let go.
Those are examples of a couple of primitive reflexes that are designed to alert their caregiver that they are in need of something or they might be in danger. that starts to develop the hand eye coordination process, starts to develop the fine motor process with the hands. Like, all of these primitive reflexes are designed to keep baby alive but also start those developmental processes throughout infancy and toddlerhood.
Now, primitive reflexes are designed to integrate into the body so that it makes way for higher level more intentional coordinated movements, right? So their reflexes, because they're in the brainstem, we don't have control over them. They just, they happen with certain when something facilitates them.
But once they are integrated, we then have control over our movements. We now Don't, our arms don't automatically go into that fencer position when we turn our head. We have that dissociation between our different body parts. And as those primitive reflexes are integrating throughout infancy and toddlerhood, the child grows and develops, hits developmental milestones, and starts to be able to access the higher level brain cognition processes.
Now, primitive reflexes get stuck in the body for some reason, if they don't integrate. We call them retained primitive reflexes. And what happens is then it causes the brain and the body to get stuck at that lower level. They don't have control over their body movements. They don't have control over their hand eye coordination.
And they're not going to be able to Think and problem solve and, have those higher level cognitive processes happen because they're stuck in that lower brainstem level of their body from their primitive reflexes being stuck. Yeah.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. For example with the ATNR, if it was retained, imagine how a child could not function if every time they turned their head to one side, their arms followed whatever, wherever their eyes looking, right? You can't hold your paper down at school and write, you can't. And look up at the board.
That might be like TLR or something, right? Like some other one, but
anyway, we don't need to go into the nitty gritty here and show how much I don't know about topic, but but it's basically the gist of it is that there are things that can elicit these reflexes if they are retained in older kids, which make it very difficult to have control over. Your movements and your thinking really, because if your body isn't cooperating with what you want it to do, it. It can be really challenging for a kid and all the functional things
Rachel & Jessica: So going back towards our function, versus retained primitive reflexes, that's where it's important to have that. clinical observation ability to be able to have a checklist that you can give to the parent and say, fill this out so we can identify what your functional deficits are as it relates to primitive reflexes.
So you can get an idea before you even test a kiddo yeah, we're really struggling with a couple of areas of the ATNR. So let's test it. and see if it's possibly retained or maybe there aren't any checks on the ATNR, but we're still showing some of those, retention signs. And that's, I think what's so important to think about is it doesn't necessarily, the reflexes don't necessarily need to be addressed if they're not impacting function.
There are so many factors that go into primitive reflexes that just because you do a physical test, whether it's active or passive, and it's showing up that the reflex is retained. If it's not impacting function, then it's probably not impacting function. And that's okay. And I think sometimes people get their panties in a wad looking for.
Oh the moral reflex was slightly retained and we need to really work on this, but it's not actually impacting their function. And, we don't want to waste our time, if we're not seeing clinical challenges, let's focus on, if there is underlying trauma or if they're feeling unsafe, or if there's underlying sensory challenges, because if you think about that, that great visual, the pyramid of learning, Sensory and primitive reflexes are the base of that foundational pyramid, right?
Without accurate primitive reflex maturation and sensory processing skills, then those higher level skills, like Jessica mentioned, aren't necessarily going to build as efficiently as possible. And a big component of the reflex integration is ocular motor skills. Oftentimes when people have retained TLRs and STNRs and ATNRs, their ocular motor skills.
aren't working efficiently. Their eyes aren't working, in coordinated movements together. So they're struggling to copy from the board and read and write. They're getting diagnosed with dyslexia. They're getting diagnosed with ATNR or ADHD. Thank you. So there's all of these components that we have to just peel the layers of the onion back to see what is the actual problem here.
If there is a problem with the reflex integration.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. I want to quick tell people if people are feeling like, wow, this is, I'm sure there's people that are going to listen to this who maybe don't even know about this topic at all, but I know you guys offer a, you have a course, right?
Rachel & Jessica: Yes.
Laura Park Figueroa: For therapists or for parents, you guys, I know you guys have different levels.
So if people go to Harkla. co, is that the
Rachel & Jessica: Yep.
Laura Park Figueroa: website? Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you want more, like an actual course and like the checklists and things to use and how to assess and how to treat all of this, go to Harkla. co and get their course. And then you can get into The nitty gritty details and have all the resources, right?
I've actually thought about getting, I do have some therapists who see individual kids in my practice but we do most of our services in groups. So this might get us into talking about like some of the things we could do in groups that would maybe. We're not in a place like I have all my systems in place in my business.
We are not in a place where like any kid that comes into a group is going to get individualized primitive reflex testing, like that's not something I intend to do, but I wonder if there are ideas you guys have for ones that, activities or exercises that we could do in a group maybe that would be helpful for any child who might have Retained primitive reflexes that are popular ones that are often retained.
I don't know if there's ones that are more than others, but do you know what I'm saying? Like ideas for exercises we could do in a small group or individual session.
Rachel & Jessica: first I think it's important to note that the primitive reflex exercises and activities can be beneficial for everyone, including adults, because even if your primitive reflexes are not functionally impacting you, These exercises and activities still focus on building strength and coordination throughout the body.
So that's important. My go to especially with the group would be yoga and having just a really simple yoga flow to follow that focuses on like the superman, cat cow, cobra to down dog and then child's pose. It could be a super simple yoga flow and that's going to work on a lot of sensory processing as well.
You're, the kids are going to get a lot of proprioceptive input by being on the ground, They're going to get a lot of vestibular input from the head position changes, and they're going to be moving and coordinating their body, which is great for the brain and body connection and then incorporate breathing into it, right?
So you move into a new pose and you do a deep breath before you go into the next pose, right? So you're also going to be working on a lot of self regulation and interoceptive processing as well.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah. The breathing is so key to, as you said, yoga, I was thinking, gosh, the simplest things, like we forget how therapeutic they can be.
Rachel & Jessica: Yeah.
Laura Park Figueroa: I'm doing a PT, I'm doing a group of a PT that runs a group program. I'm doing her program for people. I'm not communicating that I'm doing a program with a physical therapist right now, who runs a group online program for people who have scoliosis.
So it's mostly Pilates based and I am amazed with how much time she spends on breathing in every class. It's I just never knew how important breathing was for my ribcage and my back, I just don't think about it. So it's important for our kids too. And I often don't think about it with kids.
Rachel & Jessica: I could go on a whole nother tangent about breathing. How so many of our kids are shallow breathers and they're just constantly all day long, they're never getting a deep full breath and filling up their lungs and their belly all the way. Like it almost never happens. And so it is something that as therapists,
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah.
Rachel & Jessica: we can start including into our sessions.
Yeah, and I'll just add to that too, yoga, my go to is always crawling, just because crawling, naturally integrates the STNR, helps with the TLR, the ATNR as well, and the Palmer, all of the things. So I'm like, get down on the floor. I wrote a book about crawling because I'm like, I love crawling.
I want everyone. I want kids, I want adults, I want pregnant people to just get on the floor and crawl all day long. Yes. And honestly. This
Laura Park Figueroa: The American Academy of Pediatrics just removed it from the developmental list of the developmental sequence or whatever for kids. It's I know that OTs everywhere and PTs were
what the, just
Yeah, it's completely mind blowing that is It's just so important.
That cross lateral is so important
Rachel & Jessica: it is.
Laura Park Figueroa: for development. It just blew, for the brain development, it just blew
Rachel & Jessica: No kidding.
Laura Park Figueroa: you need to form a coup,
write big letter of response or something because
it's Anyways, someone was going to say
something. Sorry. I,
Rachel & Jessica: That's okay. I was just going to say, you could create a whole activity outside with yoga and crawling and climbing and really incorporate all of these different components to have an amazing therapy session. And this could be OT, PT, speech, mental health. You can address all of those different areas for whatever specialty you're in with being outside doing yoga and crawling.
Yes.
Laura Park Figueroa: yeah, it's crazy. I feel like I saw something on your was it your, okay, you'll have to tell me just tell me no, Laura, you're crazy. You're remembering it wrong. But I actually feel like I got this idea from either your Instagram or maybe a podcast of yours that I listened to. When I was with my new employee at her group the other day, we, they just had a ball out.
We were waiting for the other kids to get there. It was a group. And so there were, I think, two little boys there and one of our volunteers, and they were just throwing a ball around. And I was like, you guys, Could we do a challenge, and I showed them how to do like a plank position and then the ball to each other with one hand, like trying to hold yourself up in a plank with one hand while you push the ball to each other with the other hand. One of them was not going for it, but the other one gave it a try. And it was like, That to me was like a much more challenging activity than just standing and kicking or throwing the ball, right? You're getting their head in a different position. You're getting some upper body strengthening. So I think as therapists, we need to think a little bit about the, Yes.
there's therapeutic value, but also if a kid can be challenged a little bit more, like I could tell they were both it was easy, it was no big deal, which is fine.
It was just a. We're just hanging out before everybody got there. But was that from your, am I remembering that from you
guys?
Rachel & Jessica: have done that one before. We have. So it could be.
Yeah. I I'm not crazy then. Thank you for verifying that I'm not crazy enough.
that activity might actually be in the course as one of the functional activities to address. It probably was in like an Instagram video. That could have been. Yeah. Yeah. But
Laura Park Figueroa: little bit. So maybe it's from I can't but. Anyway, it was great. I thought it was a really great podcast slash I listened to it, but I guess there's a video somewhere maybe of it.
I don't know. But yeah, okay. So yoga plank position with the ball. What else did
say? Crawling,
Are there any other ones that are like big, must do, these are great kind of activities?
Rachel & Jessica: I, going along with the ball activity, I love, like twisting and passing a ball back and forth and with eyes then same going up and over and watching their body. Do their eyes actually go up over their head or do their, do they maintain their head in a neutral position when they're like going up and down?
That tells us a lot about them. that's always one of my go tos as well as to get the head into different positions and see what happens. Wow.
Laura Park Figueroa: so you're bringing up else I
tried to do with the kids the other day. So we were making ice cream and an ice cream ball, which is a super fun. It is it is so fun. You can find it on Amazon. Just type in ice cream ball to make ice cream or something and it will You'll find it, but you put the heavy cream and the rock salt and the outside of the thing, and it has this container.
You put the heavy cream and we used honey in ours. Use a lot of honey. If you do ours did not have enough honey in it. Our honey was a little crystallized. And so our ice cream ended up being like. But anyway, I've made ice cream before in the ice cream ball. And it is, it's amazing.
But you, the motivating thing is that the children have to roll the ball for at least 25 minutes to get the ice cream. So if you have a group of kids, you can't kick it because It's more delicate than that. So what I was trying to get the kids to do, we were rolling it a lot, like just sitting on the ground, rolling it, or maybe gently rolling it with our feet to each other. But I
wanted to change it up because we had a couple of kids not interested. They were like, this is boring, whatever. And they were like going over to play with sticks, which was fine and therapeutic as well. But I wanted to get them back in and so I was trying to have them like stand in a line and one pass over and then one go under their legs. It's inter I'm like now thinking did they have primitive reflex because they were like, oh, we're not having it. As soon as the first kid put it over his head and I put it under the rest of the line disintegrated. The next three kids were like, doing this. It's interesting, right?
It's really interesting to see because that would seemingly be something most kids I think would think that was fun to pass it up and over, but I do wonder it's things like that now my brain is going to be going like, huh, like do wonder because, It could be that we just think they're not motivated or they don't want to do it. But if you take a primitive reflex or even a sensory integration stance on it, it could be that they can't or they're having a hard time doing it. And so they disengage, right? I'm glad to know I was doing some things
Rachel & Jessica: love that. Keep it. Yes. I was also thinking too, oftentimes these kids don't know how, right? They struggle with motor planning, which can be related back to reflexes. So they watch somebody else do a new motor task and they immediately, they also have decreased self confidence. Because that things are hard for them.
And so they watch somebody do a new motor task and they immediately go to. Nope, that's too hard. I don't know how to do it. I'm not even going to try because, this is all internal that they're saying because I, it'll be hard for me.
And yeah, as therapists, we have to figure out how can we get these kids engaged in these novel motor planning activities to address all of these areas, but also to just increase their self confidence in their own abilities to do new things.
Laura Park Figueroa: Yeah, it does help when other kids are there, like the one with the plank position. With the one kid doing it, who was good friends with the other kid, he actually was like, Oh, you're going to do it? Like he, I think having the kids modeling and having group sessions where kids are Modeling different things.
is good.
It's it gets some buy in besides like a therapist, like adult person
doing it. Yeah. Let's do a little wrap up. Do you guys want to I already promoted your course for you. Do you have anything like, feel free. I want you guys to share with people. What do you have available?
So your podcast is all things sensory. You do it weekly. It's amazing. Everyone should go subscribe to it. It's so great. That is the free thing you have, but I know you guys have multiple courses through
Rachel & Jessica: Yeah, we also have YouTube. That's another free resource. If you're a visual, YouTube as well. That's Harkla, you can search Harkla. Yeah, we do have our paid courses. We do have free webinars as well. That kind of give you. an idea of what the like full course looks like. But we've got early intervention, we have sensory diets, we have primitive reflexes, and the early intervention course includes primitive reflex integration for that early intervention age range, which we felt like was missing from so many courses.
And there's just this big gap and we don't necessarily work on and integrate and test for primitive reflexes until four or five, six years old. So what do we do with our early intervention kiddos who are struggling, so how can we help facilitate integration? So we cover that a lot in our course as well, but I definitely want to start there.
We also have a course that's focused on the classroom. It's improving focus and behavior in the classroom, and it's how to use sensory strategies For the classroom for all students, but also how to individualize sensory strategies for students who might need a little bit more. And it's geared towards educators and teachers as well as school based
Laura Park Figueroa: great. Great. I love it. Because that's, I feel like that's such a wonderful resource because I worked in schools for almost 10 years of my career. And oh my gosh, the workload in a school setting is
just a lot. So you're making it easier for therapists to be able to, or for teachers to be able to do things without the therapist there
even Yeah, that's awesome.
Rachel & Jessica: trying.
Laura Park Figueroa: That's awesome.
Rachel & Jessica: Yeah. So all of our
info is at, on our website, Harkla. co.
Laura Park Figueroa: Okay. Yeah. H A R K L A dot co.
C O. So everybody can find you guys there and find you on YouTube and you're on Instagram
too. Yes.
What is it? At all things sentry or at Harkla? What's
Both. We have at all things sensory podcasts that we have Harkla underscore family. Cause we're a family.
Okay, great. I love
it. Thank you so much for coming. I love talking to you guys and I just love the work you're doing. I'm so like, you're like such a light in the OT profession and I'm so thankful for you guys and what you do for everyone. thanks for being here.
Rachel & Jessica: so much.
Laura Park Figueroa: I was about to publish this episode and realized I had not mentioned in the episode. That Contigo, my nature-based therapy certification and mentoring program is now open for enrollment. We only open enrollment three times a year for this program. You get lifetime access when you join. And we give you everything that you need, the mentoring, the support, the content, the training, the resources in order to become an expert nature-based pediatric therapist.
So if you are interested, You can go to Contigo approach.com and get all of the information there. We are open until April 30th for a may cohort. We will have our. Meetings on zoom to process the learning that we're doing together. In the month of may for four consecutive weeks in the month of may. And if you have taken Contigo before, you're welcome to join us as well. So, I'll see you guys inside.
If you want to enroll, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have. My email is Laura at therapy in the great outdoors.com. See you soon.
Wait a second, don't go yet. Do you want 120 ways that you can take your pediatric therapy work outdoors into nature? I wrote the free, big, huge list of nature based therapy activities just for you. The big huge list will give you quick ideas for nature based sessions. In the big huge list, there are activities for gross motor, fine motor, visual perceptual, executive function, balance, group collaboration, and team building.
social, emotional, and self regulation skills, as well as speech and language, and a whole section just for swing activities. So go on and get your free big, huge list. So you can get started taking kids outdoors or have some new ideas. If you've been doing this a while, you can download your free copy at therapyinthegreatoutdoors.
com slash list. So until next time, get outside, connect, reflect, and enjoy therapy in the great outdoors.
