ARK's Blog

Just like its namesake, lip closure (also known as lip seal) is the ability to close one's lips.  It's important for several different speech/feeding/oral motor skills: .  .  •  Being able to close one's lips around a straw, spoon, a piece of food, etc. •  Being able to pronounce the speech sounds /p/, /b/, and /m/ •  Being able to chew food with one's …

The best therapy exercises are the ones where the child doesn't know it's an exercise, which is why every pediatric speech and occupational therapist's "bag of tricks" is mostly full of toys and games and other fun activities. Play dough is one of these staple activities.  There are endless possibilities of what you can do with it, one of which is creating a "birthday cake" for imag …

Rhythmic chewing is one component of a mature chewing pattern.  There's a tempo to the way we chew - it's not sporadic;  we don't chew fast then slow then fast again.  We chew to a silent yet steady beat in order to properly break down food. . .  In the video below, however, this young man has a very sporadic chewing pattern.  In fact, he'll …

Feeding therapy tip: if a child won't eat with a spoon, use whatever he/she WILL accept. In this feeding session, for instance, the child's favorite spoon was at home and he didn't like any of the other spoons I had.  So, I tried a twizzler and voila!  He ate the entire container of food.  . . You can also try dipping a Grabber, Y-Chew, or ARK Probe into whatever the c …