Effect of a psychoeducational intervention on motor and perceptual-visual development through the inhibition of primitive reflexes in schoolchildren from 4 to 7 years old

The efficacy of the Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning program (Blythe, 2012) on inhibition of primitive reflexes is presented. The sample is made up of 25 girls and 21 boys aged four to seven years old (M= 4.84, SD = 1.10). The Developmental Screening of the Institute of Neurophysiological Psychology of Chester, INPP (Blythe, 2012) has been used to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention through a pretest-postest design with control group. ANCOVA and Factorial ANOVA have been used for statistical analysis, depending on the fulfillment of assumptions. The main findings of this study refers to the existence of active primitive reflexes in a sample of schoolchildren and how these primitive reflexes are sensitive to psychoeducational intervention on reflex inhibition through a movement program. In addition, the involvement of inhibition of primitive reflexes in improving motor development has been highlighted but except for visual perception skills. (c) 2023 Universidad de Pais Vasco. Published by Elsevier Espalia, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://clea ti vecommons.orgflicenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study examined the effectiveness of the Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning program in inhibiting primitive reflexes. The findings suggest that primitive reflexes play a role in motor development but may not have a significant impact on visual perception skills.