So keep an eye out for tongue lateralization to both sides. I know this is puzzling, but every now and then this happens in therapy to me. It has also been my experience (as it was just this past week), that some children may only lateralize to one side. Puréed? Mechanical soft? Chopped? Regular? Maybe the child isn’t progressing to eat harder-to-chew foods because he cannot lateralize. Is the food being moved side to side? What type of food is it. Overemphasize chewing yourself, making a “yum-yum” sound. Really get in a position for a good view into the oral cavity. Yes, the sides of the tongue need to make contact with the upper back teeth for such phonemes as r, sh, ch, etc., but no speech sounds are made with the tongue lateralizing. Remember, one does not need to perform this oral motor task for speech sound development. Then move the Probe in increments to the corner of the mouth, prompting him to touch it with his tongue tip at each increment (this provides a tactile cue for the tongue to follow). Or, place the Probe in the middle of the bottom lip and ask the child to touch it with his tongue tip. Or, place ARK’s Probe or Z-Vibe to the corner of the mouth on each side and prompt the child to touch it with his tongue tip. Ask the child to imitate you “wagging” your tongue. There are several ways you can “test” for this. It’s also how we go “fishing” for leftover food particles in the cheeks, around the gums and teeth, and on the lips.
It’s an important skill for feeding therapy and development, as the tongue lateralizes in order to manipulate food to be chewed and formed into a ball (or bolus) before swallowing. Tongue lateralization is the ability to move the tongue side to side inside the mouth. I have seen this greatly improve a child’s ability to achieve tongue lateralization. I also use rotation exercises in therapy, particularly with children who have linear movement patterns.
Therefore, It make sense that using exercises that develop rotation can help with the progression toward chewing. Developmentally, a child achieves trunk rotation before lateralization in the mouth. Looking at gross motor skills in relation to oral motor skills is an important concept. The author, Debbie Lowsky, MS CCC-SLP gave permission for this article to reposted here.
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