Hello Everyone! It’s Kasey again coming to you to talk about some of the therapy tools that we are using here at Family Chatterbox! Our therapists have some training from a company called Talk Tools who partners with Speech-Language Pathologists to work on Oral Placement Therapy (OPT). What does this fancy word mean for your child? Basically think about it like this…we use words/sounds (auditory stimulation), pictures and visuals (visual stimulation) and physical tools and touch (tactile stimulation) to help your child to improve their speech clarity! We don’t just stick these tools in front of the child and expect that they will improve their speech sounds, but by helping them to develop the strength and coordination they need, they are more readily able to incorporate the tricks and techniques for new speech sounds that we are teaching them! Sounds great right?
One of the most common tools we use in therapy is called the Bite Tube Hierarchy (or chewy tubes as we fondly call them!) They are pictured above, and you may have seen some of our photos before! These chewy tubes can help with jaw skills and work toward improving jaw stability, symmetry and grading. Again you might ask, what does this mean and why is the jaw important? Think about trying to move your jaw open to say the sound “ah” and you can’t quite open your mouth all the way, the sound will be distorted. Another example is thinking about the “s” sound, try to say that with your jaw open and notice how challenging this is. For our kiddos who have trouble controlling their jaw, it can drastically impact their speech production skills. Not only do the chewy tubes address this, they also provide stimulation to the TMJ (temporomandibular joint) and are an alternative to teeth grinding, thumb sucking, biting, pacifier usage, etc.
Message us with your specific questions or to see if jaw control is impacting your child’s speech!
-Kasey-