Oral Motor Tips

Julia at 17 months with her Chewlery

I have noticed that I am getting a lot of email from Julia's website about oral motor. I wanted to do a post about oral motor and some of the tips that help us with Julia's inappropriate oral behaviors.

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!