Motor Loops: What Are They? What Are Our Top 3 Ways to Help Inhibit Them
By Jessica Jordan, MS, OTR/L & Erin Clarelli, MS, OTR/L
Motor Loops: What Are They?
Many autistic individuals share about the “motor loops” happening in their bodies and the feelings that may arise. First, we’d like to take a step back in order to define the term motor loops, which unfortunately isn’t a medical term you’d find in any research studies or medical texts. Here at SUNRISE Therapies we define motor loops as a motor pathway that has become so strong due to over myelinated pathways. We consider these motor loops as an “automatic” or “impulsive” type of motor output. The caveat is that motor loops can be considered as regulating and/or dysregulating. Keeping this in mind and involving the individual experiencing motor loops in the decision making process, as much as possible, is important! More to come on the feelings around these loops and an individuals regulation in a blog post to come!
What Are Our Top 3 Ways to Help Inhibit Motor Loops? *if the individual wants to inhibit them…
Try to check in with the individual to see if this loop is comforting or dysregulating to them. Most motor actions serve some sort of function for our sensory systems. If this cannot be shared by the individual, I would use your best judgement to determine how the loop is best supporting the individual in the moment and offer guidance from there. For example, if the fidgeting of a sensory item is happening when the individual is in a new environment with new demands, it may be comforting to the individual. But, if it’s happening in an environment where they are generally calm and organized and they can’t seem to move away from it, it may be worth exploring the next steps.
Try to offer the individual prompts to redirect the loop to more intentional motor movement. Prompts can include verbal prompts, visual cues, auditory cues and more! Check out the prompting freebie below if you’d like more information on this. This is going to vary per the individual, however it is SO important to know that the individual can hear and understand you. These motor loops can be so impulsive in the body due to that over myelination, therefore motor coaching and redirection is necessary to get the individual out of this tornado. (This is what Vincent Rinicella recently compared what a motor loop feels like in his body). A reminder that motor loops aren’t always the easiest to break or “scramble” so have patience with yourself and the person you are motor coaching.
Strengthen the neural pathways building more intentional, purposeful and voluntary motor. Building these pathways will yield to stronger pathways that are intentional to the individual. We work on this knowing the principles of neuroplasticity which dictate that our brain and bodies have the ability to learn new things by practicing the movement repeatedly and intentionally.