ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

Each year I receive several emails from colleagues about 'retained primitive reflexes.'  I am also seeing an increased number of reports from local 'health care' providers who are documenting these alleged problems so I thought I would write a summary of my opinion on this topic.   Predatory 'health care' providers including some OTs, PTs, chiropractors, and behavioral optometrists are creating a new 'market' for treating this alleged 'problem.'  Parents should be very wary of these practitioners and other professionals should challenge these practices whenever they are seen. The following is the kind of information that causes concern and was provided to me by a colleague as a sample from a student's IEP: The student continues to demonstrate the following retained primitive reflexes that at times interfere with his ability to demonstrate appropriate adaptive responses: Fear Paralysis Reflex, Moro Reflex, Palmer Reflex, Tonic Labyri

It is budget negotiation season in New York State, and you can tell this by the long line of elected municipal leaders and other special interests who get invited into budget hearings to beg for more funding. People who watch the process closely call this the 'tin cup brigade' and that is an apt description of the process even if it does ruffle the feathers of those in line.  Leading the line are the Counties and other municipalities who are forced to endure the unfunded mandates passed onto them by the State.  A prime example is the New York State Early Intervention Program. Funding the early intervention program has been a nightmare for many years.  As the program has grown the costs were shifted around - most recently this involved a complex payment scheme that used an intermediary acting as a fiscal agent that billed the private insurance companies.  The idea behind that was to create a cost sharing context with the private insurance sector, but all that was accomplis