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Health & Fitness

ORAL MOTOR EXERCISES TO HELP IMPROVE SPEECH PRODUCTION

Written By: Elissa Murnick M.S. CCC-SLP Certified Speech Language Pathologist, Director Murnick Speech & Language Associates

Many children with articulation difficulties have a weakness in their oral mechanism.  Oral-motor skills refer to the movement of the muscles of the face (e.g., mouth, jaw, tongue, and lips). This includes muscle strength, muscle tone, range of motion, speed, coordination, and dissociation (the ability to move oral structures, such as the tongue and lip, independently of each other) Clinical experience suggests that the acquisition and maturation of oral-motor movements underlies sound production and feeding skills (e.g., sucking, biting, and chewing)  Children with developmental disabilities may demonstrate oral-motor patterns that are not observed in typical development. Atypical oral-motor patterns include jaw thrusting, tongue thrust, lip retraction and tongue retraction.  In order to produce speech sounds correctly, children need to have adequate strength, coordination and range of motion of their lips, tongue and jaw. During an initial assessment, a Speech Language Pathologist may ask a child to do various exercises/movements with his/her lips, tongue, teeth and jaw to assess whether or not an Oral Motor Weakness is present and speech therapy is appropriate. In conjunction with articulation therapy, a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) may incorporate oral motor exercises to help improve speech clarity. These are techniques that will be taught in therapy and can be carried over into the home. In designing the oral therapy intervention plan, the SLP may identify activities that include blowing horns, bubbles, and cotton ballssucking or drinking; up-and-down tongue movements; licking, biting, or pushing on a tongue depressor with lips; or breathe control exercises.

To learn the purpose of these exercises, visit oral motor exercises to help improve speech production on my website.

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Below are examples of Oral Motor Exercises to practice 10 times each:

 ORAL MOTOR EXERCISES FOR TONGUE STRENGTH

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 Improving tongue strength will help produce sounds that involve tongue tip elevation such as (t,d,n,l), tongue retraction (k,g,ng) and tongue protrusion (th)

· Licking peanut butter, marshmallow crème or frosting with the tongue after it has been placed on the roof of the mouth or behind the top front teeth. These exercises work on tongue lifting/elevation and if you put some on one side of the cheek it helps for the tongue to move side to side.

· Place Cheerios, Applejacks or Fruit Loops on the table and have your child ’spear’ one with his tongue. This may be difficult for him to understand but you can show him! The child has to aim and protrude tongue past the lips.

· Rub syrup, frosting or peanut butter on the outside of your child’s lips so he can lick his lips with his tongue. This works on tongue control and range of motion.

·  Have your child push against a flavored tongue depressor or lollipop as hard as he/she can to improve tongue strength.

· Have your child place a Cheerio on his/her tongue tip and move it from one side of the mouth to the other to improve tongue tip lateralization.

To view more exercises for tongue strength, visit oral motor exercises to help improve speech production

ORAL MOTOR EXERCISES FOR LIP STRENGTH

Improvement of lip strength will help produce sounds that involve lip rounding (w, sh,ch), lip closure (m,b,p) and  lip retraction (r,s,z) and lip protrusion (f,v)

· Open and close your mouth as wide as you can

· Pucker your lips as if your were going to give someone a kiss

· Smile, then relax your lips and cheeks

· Press your lips tightly together, then open them with a smack

· Puff your cheeks with air while keeping your lips closed tightly

To view more exercises for lip strength, visit oral motor exercises to help improve speech production

ORAL MOTOR EXERCISES FOR JAW STRENGTH

· Open your jaw as wide as you can

·  Move your jaw from side to side slowly then quickly  

To view more exercises for jaw strength, visit oral motor exercises to help improve speech production

Elissa Murnick is a licensed, certified Speech Language Pathologist and the owner of Murnick Speech & Language Associates in Fairfield, CT. She has worked for almost 15 years with children of all ages with a wide range of speech and language disorders in a public and private school setting as well as private practice. For more information about scheduling an evaluation visit Murnick Speech & Language Associates on the web at www.murnickspeechandlanguage.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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