The Connection Between Feeding and Motor Development

Did you know that there was a connection between movements of the body and movements of the mouth? There is! Learning to eat parallels physical, sensory, and oral motor development. In addition, the way a person moves their body affects the way the mouth moves when talking or eating. By understanding these connections, we can reduce many feeding problems by addressing physical and sensory development in feeding therapy and by making changes to the physical environment.
How do you know when you should introduce the first foods? Signs of developmental readiness are better indicators than age. Typically, this happens as a baby’s motor skills develop and they begin to gain better postural control and stability. Here are a few signs that indicate that a child might be ready to try first foods:

• Sitting up with support.
• Good head control.
• Mouths hands and toys independently.
• Enjoys watching others eat.

Many children however have developmental delays that affect the coordination of the body, which in turn affects the coordination of the mouth for eating. Motor delays and impairments not only affect a child being able to sit up, crawl, or walk, but also affect a child’s ability to eat efficiently. A couple of common problems of the mouth-body connection that we see are:

• If the body is stiff (hypertonic)
  • “Hypertonic” means too much tone (tension) in the muscles. When the body is hypertonic and has too much tone, it affects the jaw, tongue, lips, and cheeks and causes them to become more uncontrolled and get stiff as well.
• If the body is flopping (hypotonic)
  • “Hypotonic” means too little tone (tension) in the muscles. From a feeding standpoint, if the body is hypotonic, the tongue, cheeks, and lips will be low in muscle tone too. As a result, food may sometimes fall out of the mouth or be pushed out by the tongue. It is hard to learn to suck in a controlled way or chew food when the body and mouth have low tone.

It is important to have a feeding therapist that understands this relationship between the mouth and body and works with other specialists (such as occupational therapists and physical therapists) that can provide consultation when needed.
At Therapy Innovations, we have speech-pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists that all understand this relationship and work together to ensure that the whole child is being looked at and all underlying issues are addressed. We have therapists trained in Kinesio Taping as it relates to feeding therapy. This is a research-based therapy modality in which the therapeutic benefits are to improve motor patterns and functional independence.