I've been reading Pam Marshalla and Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson about the usefulness of oral motor exercises for speech. Then I read on Teach Me To Talk about how there are studies that show such exercises are useless for speech (but still useful for feeding and such). I recall some moms on here saying that such exercises helped their child start verbalizing more right afterward though. So I'm wondering:

What exercises were especially useful for increasing verbalization?
What exercises were especially useful for decreasing oral sensitivity?

Thanks for any clarification! There's the general arsenal of oral motor exercises (tongue exercises, whistles, etc.), but I've ended up rather confused on exactly what is useful for what.

Jan

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wife and mother of Katherine (2004) and Christopher (Aug. 2007, DS)

I'd suggest starting with exercises to strengthen the jaw, as that will help with verbalization. If the jaw is weak, there isn't going to be very good speech, because the jaw is the foundation for all speech.

For decreasing oral sensitivity, I'd suggest using a Z-Vibe, Jigglers, and maybe a NUK Brush.

I have loads of info on OMT/ST on my blog too - http://gotdownsyndrome.blogspot.com/search/label/speech%20therapy.

Qadoshyah

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Our Blog: http://gotdownsyndrome.blogspot.com

Are you looking for oral motor to stimulate talking or to improve clarity of speech? That to me makes a difference.

In my interpretation, if there's weak musculature, it may be difficult for a child/person to produce various sounds, such as /p, b, m/ if the muscles around the lips are too week to get a good seal for the lip closure needed for those sounds. However, if the musculature is intact, which you can tell a lot by how the child eats (if there's spillage out of the mouth, lip muscles may be weak, if that makes sense), then you may just have to retrain the child on how to make specific sounds that are in error. I don't know much about specific research on oral motor, but I'm thinking that there are conflicting views on whether or not it helps with speech production if the musculature (lips, tongue) are intact and working appropriately.

I don't know if this makes sense, but I hope I've explained it all in a way that does.

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Natalie, sister to Greg (31) and an SLP

Hi Jan,

Well with my Christopher (who'll be 5 next week) I pondered the same question. He also had feeding problems when he was tiny. Stimulating the mouth did help there, but it really has been shown that oral exercises don't help with respect to speech. Christopher has severe verbal dyspraxia. What we do is a fun, stress-free, family-centered program called Communicating Partners. There are great books about it and a really supportive yahoo community where you get lots of answers. Check out http://jamesdmacdonald.org/Articles/MacDonaldStart.html.
Best of luck!
Anja

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Anja with Philippa (* 02-17-2003) and Christopher (DS, * 08-07-2005)

Wow, some of you dug that post up from a while ago! Thank you for your responses. I finally broke over and ordered Pam Marshalla's "Oral Motor" book, which I'm plowing through. I'm not sure how much it will help with speech, but if it only gets us through toothbrushing without so much agony, it will be worth it!

Jan

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wife and mother of Katherine (2004) and Christopher (Aug. 2007, DS)