Assessments offered are:
- Auditory Processing Skills Test, assessment used is TAPS-3
- Reading Assessment using: SSRT & visual reflex assessment (eye tracking)
- Primary Motor Reflex Pattern Test assessment used is MNRI assessments
1. Test of Auditory Processing Skills, Third Edition (TAPS-3)
This useful assessment can help diagnose auditory processing difficulties, imperceptions of auditory modality, language problems, and/or learning disabilities in both children and teens. The TAPS-3 offers seamless coverage for ages 4 to 18 years. Used by psychologists, speech pathologists, language specialists, learning specialists, diagnosticians, and other testing professionals, it measures what children and teens do with what they hear.
The TAPS-3 includes the following subtests: Word Discrimination Phonological Segmentation Phonological Blending Numbers Forward Numbers Reversed Word Memory Sentence Memory Auditory Comprehension Auditory Reasoning The order of the subtests reflects a developmental progression from easiest to most difficult tasks. The Auditory Reasoning subtest is specifically designed to tap auditory cohesion, a higher order process.
It can be used to identify possible attention difficulties and determine how the child's auditory processing works in "real-world" situations. The test provides not only an overall score, but three cluster scores as well: Basic Auditory Skills, Auditory Memory, and Auditory Cohesion. Some subtests offer partial credit to more accurately reflect the child's auditory abilities.
2a. Salford Sentence Reading Test (SSRT) - 4th Edition
Assess individual reading progress based on a series of sentences of graded difficulty.
Fully revised and re-standardised, this complete revision brings a quick and popular test fully up to date: it now has three parallel forms, gives standardised scores as well as reading ages, includes an optional new measure of reading comprehension, and extends the test 'ceiling' to 13+.
The New Salford Sentence Reading Test is a simple and quick individual test of oral reading based on sentences of carefully graded difficulty. Consistently popular with both classroom teachers and SENCOs, it has been brought fully up to date, with new norms based on the performance of almost 10000 children in the UK. It now gives reading ages up to 11:3, with standardised scores for less able readers extending to age 13 for reading accuracy (age 14 for comprehension).
2b Visual reflex assessment
The visual system distinguishes variations in shape, color, brightness, movement, helping to distinguish familiar people, places and things from unfamiliar, to determine relative location, and detect visual input important to daily function and general survival. Visual reflexes adjust instantaneously from static and dynamic visual input that is near or far, blocking out extraneous visual input when visual concentration and focus are required, while remaining vigilant to unusual visual input important to productive functioning and general safety.
Reflexes Checked are:
Primary Motor Reflex Patterns
Asymmetric Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR), Symmetric Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR), Convergence-Divergence Oculo-kinetic, TMJ Leveling, Acoustic Reflex, Core Tendon Guard, Oculo-vestibular, Visual Figure-Ground
Auditory Figure-Ground, Eye Tracking, Head Righting, Sound/Space Orientation, Vestibular Leveling
3. MNRI Assessment
The MNRI basic assessment is designed to determine the integration state of each primary motor reflex pattern. The first step is to simply determine if a primary motor reflex pattern is active (not integrated) or not (integrated). To determine the current reflex pattern state, a sensory stimulus (specific to each reflex) is applied and the resulting response is observed.
Anyone and everyone can potentially benefit from the Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex IntegrationSM (MNRI) Method. Automatic primary motor reflex movements and patterns are the primary focus of the MNRI® Method due to the key role they play:
Providing protection during infancy and when neurosensorimotor challenges are present (emotional and behavioral regulation issues often indicative of the second)
In development as subordinate components of progressively more complex automatic motor reflex
schemes, learned motor skills, and advanced motor planning, communication and cognitive
development.
An MNRI assessment to determine the state of primary motor reflexes could uncover immature movements and patterns for even the most functionally proficient person. While the MNRI Method can and has been used in cases like this as part of a wellness or performance optimization program, it is more commonly sought out and used for people facing far greater challenges, often characterized by a broad range of labels and diagnoses.
Automatic Motor Reflex Programs & Potential
It is important to understand that automatic motor reflex programs exist in each of our bodies, regardless of a label or diagnosis, or the challenges faced. In order for each motor reflex program to emerge, mature, and integrate, however, each one of its underlying neurosensorimotor mechanism components – nervous system, sensory system, and motor system - must be functioning appropriately and cooperatively. Through his research, Alexander Luria (Russian neurophysiologist) demonstrated that restorative techniques could improve motor function. MNRI Method techniques, building on Luria’s work, target underlying neurosensorimotor pathways to improve or even restore function. Dr. Masgutova’s approach continues to demonstrate that as long as automatic motor reflex programs exist in each of us, the potential to improve or even restore function exists.
What is the Masgutova Method most concerned with?
While labels and diagnoses help to highlight general categories of dysfunction, they do not always provide an objective way to identify the underlying neurosensorimotor challenges that exist in relationship to the dysfunction. By identifying the integration state of each primary motor reflexes relative to an individual’s maturational age, the MNRI Method identifies the specific areas where neurosensorimotor challenges exist. Based in part on the findings of Alexander Luria’s neurological work with traumatized and brain damaged soldiers, on her own work with train disaster survivors, and with thousands of children over the years, Dr. Masgutova has determined that primary reflexes that have not emerged, matured, or integrated, act as a signal to help identify the area of neurosensorimotor dysfunction in the body. By focusing on the restoration of the appropriate reflex function, MNRI Method restorative techniques impact underlying neurosensorimotor function by working to:
Release sensory system protection, so that input from functionally available sensory systems is an accurate reflection of the input experience and not over- or under-exaggerated,
Re-engage inhibited neural pathways, or to
Facilitate the activation of alternate neural pathways.
