Are you noticing your child having trouble speaking? They are using their tongue properly? Or just not talking like their peers? If you have any concerns, you should have them evaluated by a speech therapist.

What Is An Oral Motor Disorder?

There are three main categories when it comes to oral motor disorders

Oral or verbal apraxia: This is when the brain tells the mouth to do something, but the mouth is not able to perform the function, due to motor planning difficulties.

Dysarthria: The inability to speak clearly or eat safely, due to due to muscle sluggishness or weakness.

A delay in the development of musculature for eating.

What causes oral motor disorders

Incorrect motor programming of the mouth muscles. The muscles in the mouth receive a message from the brain, but the muscles either misinterpret or don’t receive the message.

This causes the muscles in the wrong way or not at all, making it difficult to produce the right speech sounds or manage food in the mouth.

For some children, remembering the movements is difficult, so the sound isn’t automatic.

Low muscle tone of the jaw, tongue, or lips, is another cause. A child may have trouble moving parts of their mouth.  This can be seen as having issues drinking from a straw or moving food around in their mouth.

Evaluation by a speech therapist 

If you suspect your child has a speech or oral motor disorder, it is important to have the evaluated by a speech therapist.  The evaluation may include:

Checking for low muscle tone or weakness in the tongue, jaw, or lips.

Check for how well your child can can coordinate the movements in their mouth while performing tasks, such as repeating a string of sounds.

Evaluating your child in ‘real life’ situations, such as pretending to lick a lollipop and actually licking a lollipop

Here are a few oral motor exercises you can try at home to help speech clarity

Making funny faces.   Make a game of looking in the mirror and making funny faces. Concentrate on your child’s weakness.

Using straws to drink.   Drinking out of a straw works many muscles of a child’s mouth.

Blowing bubbles. This is especially helpful for cheek and lip weakness, they will be having so much fun, they won’t even know it’s therapy.