“What’s Going On In There?”  Oral Motor Skill Development

When Oral Motor Skills Develop

Did you know a baby’s basic oral motor skills develop in the third month of pregnancy? These skills include sucking and swallowing.  Development of these skills will help a baby move from liquids (milk or formula) to solid food.  Additionally, speech development requires oral motor movements of the jaw, lips, tongue, soft palate, and cheeks. This is important from when baby first starts cooing to children formulating complex words. What if your baby is having trouble with milk leaking from their mouth while nursing? What if your 12 month old is not chewing, and swallows everything whole? These may be signs that their oral motor skills are not functioning as well as they could be. Therefore, oral motor therapy may be beneficial.

Oral Motor Therapy…What’s That?

You may be wondering, what exactly is oral motor therapy?  The Beckman Oral Motor Program is an evidenced based form of oral motor therapy. This means that clinical research has proven that this program is effective. What is unique to the Beckman Oral Motor approach is that it targets specific areas to increase range of motion, strength, and function of very specific muscles.

The targeted exercises provide movement to make the muscles contract against resistance to build strength. The exercises help to increase muscle control, strength, and range of motion for the jaw, lips, cheeks, and tongue. But the key part to this program is that the therapy techniques do not require the  person to participate, so the treatment can be used from birth to older individuals and still benefit.   

How Could This Affect My Child?

As an example, you notice that your newborn is having difficulty nursing or taking a bottle and that a lot of milk is spilling out the side of her mouth. You are told she has an upper lip tie. In order to increase her range of motion and obtain a good seal when nursing or taking a bottle, clipping the upper lip tie may be recommended. However, this may not be necessary. Working with specific exercises to increase the range of motion or strength of the lips may greatly impact her ability to nurse or bottle feed. A referral to a trained  therapist may be beneficial before moving ahead with surgery.

Another example is a baby being seen by a physical therapist for torticollis (in layman’s terms your baby prefers to turn their head to one side over the other). Often, babies with torticollis have tightness or weakness with their oral motor skills.

This therapy can also be used with anybody that has difficulty eating and/or with tolerating different types of textures and foods. All speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists at MOSAIC Rehabilitation are trained in the   Beckman Oral Motor Protocol. We also have two certified   lactation counselors on staff if you are having trouble breastfeeding or have general questions. If you have concerns about your child’s oral motor development, or someone has recommended your child have a tongue or lip tie clipped, please call us for a free screen (406) 388-4988.