Oral Sensitivity....handle with care
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Mouth is one of the sensitive parts of our body. According to Freud, the child learns a lot from his mouth or oral area till 1 year of his age. This is called oral stage. A child till 1 year takes most of the objects into his mouth and discover about it. They are just not playing; also they are learning to prepare themselves for more demand put during chewing and speech. Freud even mentioned that few of the psychological or behaviour problems are due fixation or under exploration during oral stage.
Few children have oral issues. These issues could be because of hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity of mouth or oral areas. . Oral hypersensitivity is defined as an "excessive or adverse reaction to oral stimulation" (Fraser, Hensinger, and Phelps, 1990). In many children there are no specific causes but the children with tube feeding in early days or direct stomach feed often have oral sensitivity. Children with Autism, cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome’s or other developmental delays do have some tactile and oral sensitivity. These children suffers with feeding problem, poor face and mouth hygiene, brushing problems and do have difficulties in speech and communication.
Parents are mostly worried as child denies or does not participate in feeding, brushing or likes a particular type of food, and utensils etc. some times the situation becomes more problematic when child become aversive of oral stimulation and vomits out or become aggressive. It has been seen that children with oral sensitivities do have other tactile sensitivity like excessive ticklish, under/over sensitive to pain, drooling or other body part sensitivities.
Never give a sudden touch as it increases the arousal level and child becomes more uncomfortable. Always tells the child about the steps you want to perform on the child. Music like ringing a plate attached to the spoon and tell "Here comes the food", or visually placing the food on a bright colored plate and tell him open your mouth “aaaaaaa”
Slowly desensitise the child for different textured, temperature and taste of the food.
Make the activity more playful, and start touching the hand, back, head and slowly moves to the mouth
During the other activities like grooming and bathing etc let him to touch you or vice and versa. Use of different types of toys is also recommended.
If the child is very young or less than 8 months encourage thumb sucking, foot mouth play and other clean toys.
Wash or wipe the child face repetitively with warm cloth, this is relaxing
Deep pressure before feeding, brushing and other times of the day to desensitise the oral sensitivity.
Work on the oral movement like licking, blowing, sipping, spitting, tongue movements inside the mouth and outside as well.
Some children do respond well to vibratory brush or massager.
Encourage the child to reciprocate the game which involves touch to various parts with rhymes or songs
Take a help of an Early interventionist or Speech therapist for feeding problems
Few children have oral issues. These issues could be because of hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity of mouth or oral areas. . Oral hypersensitivity is defined as an "excessive or adverse reaction to oral stimulation" (Fraser, Hensinger, and Phelps, 1990). In many children there are no specific causes but the children with tube feeding in early days or direct stomach feed often have oral sensitivity. Children with Autism, cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome’s or other developmental delays do have some tactile and oral sensitivity. These children suffers with feeding problem, poor face and mouth hygiene, brushing problems and do have difficulties in speech and communication.
Parents are mostly worried as child denies or does not participate in feeding, brushing or likes a particular type of food, and utensils etc. some times the situation becomes more problematic when child become aversive of oral stimulation and vomits out or become aggressive. It has been seen that children with oral sensitivities do have other tactile sensitivity like excessive ticklish, under/over sensitive to pain, drooling or other body part sensitivities.
Never give a sudden touch as it increases the arousal level and child becomes more uncomfortable. Always tells the child about the steps you want to perform on the child. Music like ringing a plate attached to the spoon and tell "Here comes the food", or visually placing the food on a bright colored plate and tell him open your mouth “aaaaaaa”
Slowly desensitise the child for different textured, temperature and taste of the food.
Make the activity more playful, and start touching the hand, back, head and slowly moves to the mouth
During the other activities like grooming and bathing etc let him to touch you or vice and versa. Use of different types of toys is also recommended.
If the child is very young or less than 8 months encourage thumb sucking, foot mouth play and other clean toys.
Wash or wipe the child face repetitively with warm cloth, this is relaxing
Deep pressure before feeding, brushing and other times of the day to desensitise the oral sensitivity.
Work on the oral movement like licking, blowing, sipping, spitting, tongue movements inside the mouth and outside as well.
Some children do respond well to vibratory brush or massager.
Encourage the child to reciprocate the game which involves touch to various parts with rhymes or songs
Take a help of an Early interventionist or Speech therapist for feeding problems
Posted byNeeti at 10:10 AM
Labels: autism, oral issues
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