Oral-Motor/Feeding Services:

 

These are general descriptions of Oral-Motor/Feeding deficits that can be addressed in therapy. Please contact us for more information.

 

Oral motor deficits are muscle based. Oral-motor activities help to facilitate accurate placement for sound production. Children with oral-motor deficits may present with but not limited to following:

 

• Low tone/high tone

• Drooling

• Open mouth posture

• Tongue thrust

• Overall poor speech intelligibility, and/or articulation errors.

 

 

Oral-Motor/Speech therapy utilizes a combination of:

1.   Auditory stimulation
2.   Visual stimulation
3.   Tactile stimulation to the mouth to improve speech clarity.
(Taken from Oral-motor Exercises for Speech Clarity, Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, 1999)

 

 

Feeding therapy can help alleviate various feeding issues and focuses on the following:

 

• Strengthening the articulators in order to improve chewing.
  Learning how to use the jaw, lips and tongue to safely manipulate food in the oral cavity and/or trying new foods.

 

We use a sensory-motor based approach to feeding. Depending on a child’s sensory system we may work on desensitizing or providing sensory input to regulate a child’s sensory system.