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Julia at 17 months with her Chewlery
These are a few things that have worked for us...Julia is extremely oral and will bite/lick/chew anything she can get her hands on including the cat! She bites herself, pulls out hair to run between her lips, chews rocks if she can get them...it makes for some interesting situations! She also is a dedicated teeth grinder.
We have found that these tips help us to manage the negative oral behaviors, and have been gleaned from a variety of sources...her therapists, various seminars we have attended, and other parents of children with CDC.
While these things may help us to manage the behaviors, I find that the most successful way is to find what is driving the behavior...is she bored? frustrated? angry? Is she "coming down with a bug"? Is she feeling insecure or stressed? These are comfort behaviors...why is she uncomfortable? When I am proactive in discerning her needs and meeting them, we have fewer instances of negative behavior!
So here are some of our tips!
We offer a variety of textures for her to mouth such as: bumpy/smooth hard/soft firm/chewy warm/cold, etc. These are foods and other objects as well.
Chewlery and Chewy Tubes, also aquarium tubing, an 8 inch piece goes a long way!
DENTAL FLOSS is wonderful…she will run it through her mouth for 10-15 minutes at a time…never the whole thing in her mouth…just pulls it through her teeth. We get the minty kind.
Popsicles!
Her vibrating elephant (heavier vibration than the star teether from Wal-Mart) is great when she’s being really oral. A few minutes is all it takes to give her lots of great input and slow down the mouthing.
Crunchy snacks (like crunchy Cheetos or cubes of peeled apple) are great when she’s grinding her teeth (which she does frequently.) Chewing them gives her the same heavy proprioceptive input to the jaw that grinding her teeth does. I think she also likes the sound of chewing crunchy things.
Chewing on a toothbrush is one of her favorite mouthing activities. We also use powdered "Tang" for more input. Just dip the damp brush into the powder...she loves it. I gently brush the insides of her cheeks and her tongue as well.
Nuk brushes, toothettes, tongue depressors, all are good tools to use in the mouth for stimulation. (I use them as taught by her SLP...I don't let her have these items!)
Lollipops and ice cream help tongue protrusion and lip closure.
Foods that we use for different reasons:
Strengthen suck and blow:
Orange wedges
Juice bars
Peanut butter
Popsicles
Lollypops
Lemonade
Tart juices
Food dips (like ketchup and ranch dressing –she sucks the dip off of carrot or celery sticks)
Increasing jaw control:
Toast
Cheetos
Dried fruit (raisins are a favorite and aid in pincer grasp also)
French Fries
Small pieces of chewy candy (well monitored!)
Apples
Cheerios
So...I hope this info benefits someone out there! It sure has helped us!
Project R.I.D.E. is a wonderful program that provides therapeutic horseback riding for disabled individuals of all ages (3 and up.) Julia has been a part of this program since she began school last month and absolutely LOVES her time at Project R.I.D.E.
In addition to helping improve Julia's balance and coordination, therapeutic horseback riding provides her with an excellent source of vestibular and proprioceptive input. The gait of the horse mimics walking motions for Julia, which (in theory) will help with motor planning for walking. (The repetitive motions of her legs moving up/down/up/down as she rides.)
Regardless of how she is being benefited physically, emotionally Julia is having a ball! She loves her time at Project R.I.D.E. and is developing great relationships with her sidewalkers, instructor, the horse handlers and the animal. She signs "thank you" after each session and has learned how to pat the horse's neck to tell him to "walk on." She gets very excited about this and often the sidewalkers have to tell her to "Wait, Julia, Poncho can't walk on right now." Considering that a few months ago she couldn't be in the same area with a large animal without having a meltdown this is great!
Our older girls (Victoria, Susanna, and Alyssa) all volunteer at Project R.I.D.E. at least once a week, and often more frequently. They love the time that they spend working and know that they are helping to make a significant positive contribution.
How blessed we are to have these great resources available to us.
www.projectride.org/ProjectRIDEDesc.htm
It seems that every child has their share of bumps and bruises, but our Julia has over-extended her quota! Due to her poor balance and low muscle tone (she loses balance or her arms give way suddenly as she crawls...she can crawl very fast now!) she has had stitches in her chin 5 times. Most recently Saturday a week ago.
We have all hard wood and tile in the bottom floor of our home. Julia lost balance and banged her chin...hard. After 5 hours in the emergency room we went home with 11 stitches...3 inside and 7 outside.
Believe it or not...this is not the worst part of the story! I took her to her pediatrician on Thursday to have them removed and he felt they needed another day or so to heal. "We'll remove them Saturday." he said. He felt that the scar tissue was still weak and it wouldn't take much to split it open again.
Would you believe that by 6:30 that evening we were on our way to the emergency room again?! Her weak shoulder-girdle gave way and she banged her chin on the floor while crawling. I sobbed like a baby this time...it was so awful...all this blood and her poor chin looked (literally) like chopped liver.
This time they didn't even attempt to re-stitch her chin. The inside had healed to the place that it wouldn't knit together properly (from the first injury), and the only place that would heal together were the edges...which are too weak from all the scar tissue. Sigh. So now Julia has this large football shaped scar on her chin.
Yes...I know that in the grand scheme of things this is relatively minor...but right now it's big to us.
Julia at 17 months with her Chewlery
