Greetings All,

MoreThanReflexes.org is an educational resource for professionals on the cognitive neuroscience of learning, forgetting, and relearning, as well as the science of motor learning, motor forgetting, and motor relearning of infant milk-feeding skills, with a focus on breastfeeding skill acquisition.  

"On Motor Learning for Infant Breastfeeding Skills" is an article that may be shared if you find it helpful:
http://www.morethanreflexes.org/on-learning/

Information for upcoming webinars can be found here:
http://www.morethanreflexes.org/webinars/

Course description for upcoming webinars:
The presence of the primitive survival reflexes does not guarantee the oral grasp and effective suckling in all infants all the time.  There is a well-known but poorly understood universal phenomenon of skill decay for infant breastfeeding skills that often follows the use of an artificial nipple, and a wealth of data correlates the use of an artificial nipple with shorter duration of exclusive breastfeeding, as well as early cessation of the entire breastfeeding course.  For decades, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) have advised childbearing facilities to avoid the use of pacifiers and artificial nipples in breastfeeding infants, as part of the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative. 

Infant breastfeeding difficulties that follow the use of an artificial nipple are often observed as a recency effect, i.e., the primitive survival reflexes are often weighted toward the more recently learned feeding method, rather than equal weighting of these reflexive feeding movements for all infant milk-feeding methods all the time.  Following the use of an artificial nipple, newly acquired difficulties with the oral grasp at the breast are often observed, while other infants are able to latch but perseverate by displaying shallow latching, a technique that is requisite for using an artificial nipple, but correlated with nipple pain and nipple damage when feeding at the breast.  These breastfeeding difficulties are particularly prevalent during early learning, prior to the achievement of robust motor memory or consolidation of motor memory for breastfeeding skills. 

We adults have much in common with our former infant selves, in that learning is most effective when practice is specific to the task.  Motor learning is a complex process, and task-switching between tasks that are similar yet different is a time-consuming process requiring enough rehearsal time to learn how to discern and differentiate which movements are appropriate and inappropriate for correctly performing a specific task.  After learning a similar but different task and subsequently returning to the original task, switch costs are often observed, and these switch costs are measurable in regard to decreased speed of movement as well as decreased accuracy in performing the task.  Task-switching and switch costs have been studied for decades by comparing measurements in reaction time to stimuli; movement time for the achievement of a movement or a series of sequenced movements for completing a task or skill; response time; and inhibition of return, the delay in responding to a previously cued (orienting) stimulus. 

Examples abound for switch costs that often follow task-switching.  At approximately six months of age, the older baby begins to learn to drink from a sippee-cup, but weeks to months are required for basic skill acquisition in sippee-cup drinking.  During this early skill acquisition, the baby will not display any ease in switching to a similar but different sippee-cup, and a novel sippee-cup is often refused by infants in favor of the originally learned sippee-cup.  The toddler begins to learn how to use a spoon and fork, and during early practice sessions, often displays spoon-like movements when using the fork, and fork-like movements when using the spoon.  Across the lifespan, whether the individual is a novice or an elite performer, the greater the difficulty of the task, the greater the need for practice that is specific to the task. Therefore, the professional musician preparing for an important performance on the clarinet will not consider rehearsing with an oboe, as there is a world of difference in the oral grasp of the clarinet mouthpiece and the oral grasp of the oboe reed.  The professional baseball player will not rehearse for the World Series by practicing with a softball or a non-regulation sized baseball, and the professional golfer will not suddenly change clubs just prior to competition.   After a lifetime of skill acquisition, we adults intuitively know these things, yet in non-Baby Friendly settings and elsewhere, extraordinary task-switching abilities are often expected of the newborn who is just beginning to learn the earliest of motor skills.   

Toward greater understanding of sensory-perceptual-motor learning in the acquisition of infant breastfeeding skills, this dynamic presentation integrates precepts from the fields of breastfeeding science, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and kinesiology - the study of human movement, motor learning, and motor control.  Utilizing these precepts, clinical interventions are discussed in regard to observable skill decay that often follows the use of an artificial nipple.  Research opportunities are also discussed in regard to motor skill acquisition, skill decay, and reacquisition of infant breastfeeding skills, utilizing the parameters of reaction time, movement time, response time, and inhibition of return.

With best regards,

Debra Swank, RN BSN IBCLC
Ocala, Florida USA
More Than Reflexes Education
http://www.morethanreflexes.org

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