ARK's Blog

Fingernails. The inside of your cheek. A pen cap. A plastic water bottle cap. If you've spent a lot of your life reaching for something to bite or chew, you've probably heard it called an oral fixation - it's a familiar phrase, even if you've never used it yourself. What most people don't know is that there's a whole category of tools built specifically for an oral fixation in chewing. We often ca …

If you've spent time in an oral motor or feeding session, there's a good chance you already know the Z-Vibe. For more than twenty years it's been the vibrating oral motor tool therapists reach for and families keep coming back to. Today it grows! We'd like to introduce the Z-Vibe Plus. What the Z-Vibe does At its heart, the Z-Vibe uses gentle vibration to wake up the mouth. That input helps buil …

ARK turns 26 this month!  In celebration, here are 26 fun oral motor and feeding activities, all built around things you'd find at a birthday party - candles, frosting, sprinkles, party blowers, cake pops, crunchy snacks, silly faces, etc. Before you start - keep in mind that food-based activities depend entirely on the individual - allergies, textures they tolerate, and their current chewing …

A new school year asks a lot of kids. New routines, new noise, new expectations, long stretches of sitting still, and far fewer chances to move than summer allowed. For a lot of people, chewing is one of the ways the nervous system stays steady through all of that. It's a normal, useful thing to do, and it tends to show up more when there's more to manage. Below are five signs that a chew tool ma …