Course Description
Children develop the majority of their feeding skills in the first two years of life. Therefore, a 2-year-old child should have adult-like eating and drinking skills. However, doctors and therapists are often not seeing this development despite babies born with relatively typical structures. So, what is happening? Cranial alterations occur in upper airway, jaw, and midface in these actively growing children. These structural changes frequently result from unidentified and untreated tethered oral tissues, chewing inefficiency, immature swallowing patterns, and unhealthy mouth breathing. However, oral sensory-motor and orofacial myofunctional treatment along with appropriate medical treatment helps children develop healthy oral and airway structure and function for eating and drinking.
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
- Describe typical feeding, eating, and drinking development
- Explain reasons for and impact of cranial alterations in airway, jaw, and midface in actively growing children
- Identify team members who may work together to resolve anatomical and physiological concerns affecting feeding, eating, drinking, breathing, and swallowing
- Describe oral sensory-motor and orofacial myofunctional treatments used to treat growing children with these issues
Timed Agenda
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15 minutes – Review of typical feeding/eating/drinking development
10 minutes – Overview of breathing system used in eating and drinking
10 minutes – Benefits of nasal vs. mouth breathing
15 minutes – Implementation of medical treatment with pre- and post- therapy
10 minutes - Treatment team to resolve mouth, airway, eating, and drinking concerns
20 minutes – Oral sensory-motor treatment as a prerequisite for orofacial myofunctional treatment
10 minutes – Q & A
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