Whistles, straws and bubbles help children to speak better

The first impression of Mary about the alleged successful specialized speech therapy was not good. His son Diego has a significant problem of articulation, low oral muscle tone, always has the mouth open and the tongue between the teeth; sometimes drools and takes everything in her mouth. She wore a long speech therapist observed without much progress and decided to look for another alternative. The evaluation was excellent and when they discussed the results could imply that an oral sensory engine problem was the cause of the problems of your child's speech.

He had very good references of this new therapy and arrived on the first day of it with great expectation, which was disappearing when the specialist put Diego to blow bubbles, blowing a whistle, take a straw and with a tube to bite plastic wheels, after we have spent a small foam at the mouth and a vibrator the size of a pen.

As therapy progressed, the feeling that he had lost his time, money, and worst, hope, seized Mary. However, when she finished therapy and therapist explained why "therapy materials" used, a new sensation in Mary arose: the knowledge that had come to the right place and that was the therapy I needed his son.



A speech therapy with bubbles, whistles and straws? What are we talking about?

To blow a whistle or bubbles a child needs to project the lips outward as if to kiss or say the vowel u, requires that the jaw is stable and that the tongue from falling back to the lips to hold the whistle and not bite and good control of the air flow. These are the same skills needed to produce speech sounds.

The use of oral tactile stimulation with sponges (especially for mouth) and vibration cause increased oral sensation, which will result in increased oral awareness, which is necessary to produce speech sounds, as well as to eliminate the need to put everything in their mouths. It will also prevent the child into your mouth as big mouthfuls of food that can choke and suffocate, which would endanger his life.

The use of a tube to chew, known as "chewy tube", helps children develop good oral tone, mature skill to chew, to tolerate more variety of foods and strengthen the jaw. The stabilization of the mandible support a more accurate speech production.

The increase of some oral sensory-motor skills using these materials in a clinically pre-established hierarchy, helps children to diminish or eliminate the drooling to keep the jaw in place, attach the lips to close mouth and swallow saliva because he feels as well as the development of improved feeding skills (chewing, swallowing); all these previous skills are associated with development of speech sounds.

The approach in speech therapy or oral therapy called OPT placement (English acronym for "oral placement therapy") based on the premise that working with relatively simple objects placed in the mouth, but a hierarchy of difficulty and with a specific purpose, oral sensory-motor skills necessary for the production of speech sounds and safer food are stimulated.

Oral placement therapy was developed in the USA by the speech-language pathologist Sara Rosenfeld Johnson and is currently used in speech therapy centers around the world.



Did it work oral placement therapy Diego?

After mastering a hierarchy of several different whistles and straws, jaw exercise daily at home and to encourage chewing mouth with an oral vibrator with various tips, sponges, brushes and even a material freezes to further increase the tone and oral sensation Diego currently no drooling, no one takes anything in their mouths (which remains closed), chew well and, best of all, has overcome the problem of articulation, which is slightly longer.

Mary saw that once he started working with oral placement therapy, speech of his son began to be clearer and it was easier for him to continue developing the sounds that had not yet developed. No single therapy has been effective, but it has enjoyed Diego because for him it was almost a game.

¿Therapies whistles, straws, bubbles and chew sticks? What are we talking about? From oral placement therapy: a novel and effective approach for children with speech problems.