Sakshum ... cultivating dreams

Because of hypertonia and hypotonia of oral muscle, most of the children with disability have feeding problems. It includes inability to chew, poor control tongue for moving bolus, poor jaw coordination and instability. Many of children have poor oral sensitivity varying from hypo to hyper sensitivity which also affects the feeding and speech. Children with hypersensitivity are hesitant to try new taste and tend to swallow the food than chewing. They are “picky eater”. The hyposensitive child takes longer time to eat and keeps the food inside mouth for longer time. They are less aware if the food stick around the mouth and most of time they have hanging tongue or drooling. Because of poor oral tone they develop open mouth posture.

Mouth play can improve all these above problem and even can prevent the problem to arise if started as earliest.

• Deep pressure around the jaw improves the jaw stability and awareness. It helps in improving the tone of facial muscles and helps in oral function like chewing, swallowing and sipping.
• Firm pressure on the root of the tongue with the help of spoon increases the muscle tone of tongue and increases the voluntary control over gagging. Controlling gagging reflex helps in preventing the vomiting.
• Blowing plays an important role in developing oral functioning. Assist the child to learn blowing and sipping. Both the activities play an important role in breath control and tone regulation.
• Exposure to different type of food helps to desensitize the oral hypersensitivity.
• Pleasant touch around the mouth reduces the hypersensitivity. Touch should be firm but given in a playful way so the child accepts it well. Activities like bathing and grooming can distract the child and child readily accepts the touch. For younger children mouthing toys can be helpful which assists in chewing and improves the oral tone. For elder children chewing rubber stick, tubes or chewing gums are advisable.

The above activities do need an Early interventionist, Occupational therapist or Speech therapist guidance.