Mouth play II
Friday, October 22, 2010
Activities for improving oral functions
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.
Posted byNeeti at 8:50 PM 2 comments
Labels: cerebral palsy, child disability, developmental disability, Down's syndrome, early intervention, feeding, oral issues, parenting tips, play, speech therapy
Mouth play I
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The child learns through their mouth first. The mouth sensation develops even before their birth. Around 5 months in utero or womb the child brings the hands to mouth and sucks the hands. This is the first exposure of mouthing. After birth the child first exposure to mouthing is mother feeding. During feed the child does not even get touch sensation inside mouth but also around the mouth. This is favoured by rooting reflex which is a primitive reflex. According to Freud's psycho-sexual theory of development, the oral stage is a primary focus of libidal energy or libido. At the age of 3 months the child start bringing his hands in midline and starts mouthing. This way the child preoccupies with the pleasure of mouthing. Oral stage prepares the child for better oral functioning. It prepares the child for sucking, chewing and swallowing and later for speech.
Mouthing the toys and other objects helps the child to learn jaw control, chewing, tongue movement and speech. During this process the child learns to use different part and angles of the mouth. This prepares the child for transition of food from liquids to solids.
This is a normal process and most of the children undergo to this process by their own but it is not automatic process for children with special needs. They need assistance to learn it through guidance with early interventionist or occupational therapist.
Posted byNeeti at 10:43 PM 3 comments
Labels: autism, cerebral palsy, child disability, Down's syndrome, early intervention, occupational therapy, oral issues, parenting tips, play, primitive reflexes, sensory integration, speech therapy
Oral Sensitivity....handle with care
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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 0 comments
Labels: autism, oral issues
