Oral Motor & Feeding Therapy

ORAL MOTOR AND FEEDING:

Kids In Motion is committed to addressing many oral issues with children.  In many years of therapy with both Occupational therapist and Speech therapist, it became clear for the need to address many issues for children concerning their tongue, mouth and lips. For other children, an aversion to eating different textures of food.  We have developed programs that addresses many phases of feeding and mouth structures where disorganization and dysfunction can occur.  We provide both oral motor treatment and Feeding therapy.

Types of children we can help:

Infants:

• Babies who won’t latch on or feed
• Premature infants
• Babies who have trouble with initiating sucking, maintain sucking or won’t suck
• Babies who have reflux, colic,
• Babies who have difficulty sleeping because they are hungry
• Milk Intolerance
• Babies who won’t eat
• Babies with weak suck
• Babies with poor weight gain
• Babies who have difficulty with transitioning  to pureed food to textured foods or to solids
• Interruption in suck swallow breath synchrony

Children:

• Children who have food allergies
• Children with GI tubes or naso tubes
• Picky eaters
• Children who have poor volume of food or partial food intake
• Compromised food intake
• Children who vomit due to foods (taste, sound, texture or smell)
• Children who have mouth weakness
• Children who have difficulty chewing
• Chewing who have difficulty or painful swallow
• Children who cough, gag, or choke while eating
• Children who only eat specific texture of food
• Children who overstuff their mouth
• Children who mouth inappropriate objects
• Chronic thumb sucking
• Children who refuse to brush their teeth
• Children who lose food out of their mouth while eating
• Children who grind teeth
• Children who clench their jaw
• Children who have difficulty moving food in their mouth
• Children who collect their saliva and/ or drooling

 

Diagnosis which may have feeding issues:

• ADD/ADHD
• Brain injury
• Cerebral palsy
• Developmental Delayed
• Failure to Thrive
• Hearing Impairment
• Oral Inversion
• Spina Bifida
• Autism
• Chronic Feeders
• Picky eaters

Therapy we provide:

Oral Motor Therapy: deals with the movement of the jaw, tongue, lips, teeth and cheeks.   It addresses the placement of the above structures within the mouth.  Oral motor exercises improve mobility, awareness of placement, coordination, strength of the oral muscles and structures. It is used to alter tone in oral region (cheeks, tongue lips), face and neck muscles. Oral motor therapy aids in developing appropriate pattern with children with structural issues such as short frenulum, cleft palate, and high arched palate.  It can help alter such physiological issues as high or low tone, respiratory capacity and suck swallow breath synchrony.

Vital Stim Therapy: is a safe and effective treatment for patients suffering from a difficulty swallowing or dysphagia. The Vital Stim therapy system is a non-invasive therapy to help with swallowing through the use of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES)

Feeding Therapy:  It begins with the assessment of children based on normal developmental feeding patterns.  It then addresses compensations developed due to behavior, sensory, and physiological factors. Feeding therapy is designed to increase food intake to meet caloric intake. It improves acceptance of variety of foods while decreasing refusal behaviors.  Behaviors feeding therapy seeks to eliminate are:

• G-tube dependency
• N-G tube dependency
• Bottle dependency
• Packing and pooling of foods
• Pica
• Vomiting/rumination
• Limited consumption of foods and food textures

We may also utilize Talk Tools, Beckman, and many other popular approaches to alter and change your child’s feeding frustration into an easy mealtime of smiles