Hello again! This is Kasey writing to you today about another tool that we use to help kids develop the necessary skills that they need to produce speech sounds. Today our topic is Bite Blocks! If you go back to last blog and read about our Chewy Tubes, you will learn a little bit about why we love using tools in therapy. As a quick recap, lots of the kiddos that we work with haven’t been able to learn appropriate speech sounds by using the conventional systems of “look at me, and make the sounds that you hear me making”. If they had been able to learn that way, they most likely would not be needing speech therapy. So we use a variety of ways to teach these kids the sounds, and help them develop the necessary strength, coordination, and mobility to be able to move their lips, jaw, and tongue appropriately to make sounds.
Okay moving onto the topic of today, the Bite Block Hierarchy! This tool is similar to the Chewy Tubes because they both work on jaw symmetry, strength, stability! However, the difference is the grading of the jaw. What does grading mean or matter for your child? Well think about grading as a slow/controlled ability to move the muscle (or jaw in this scenario) open and closed. This is important when we make a sound such as “aye” as in “cake”. We open our jaw wide, and then need to slowly pull it back up to make the sound “aye”. If a child demonstrates weak jaw musculature during speech sound production or feeding (i.e. reduced mobility, sliding, or jutting) it can be very problematic. Notice that your child moves his or her jaw too much or too little? Notice that it slides side to side when they speak, or juts forwards and backwards? Call us for a free screening, or just to answer any questions you might have over the phone!
-Kasey-