Today's Topic: Articulation and Oral Motor Skills

Today at our Next Steps class the topic was all about articulation and oral motor skills. I so look forward to going every week. I really hope we get approved for the next session. I may just show up any way if we don't.

Anyway, I thought this was interesting. I am taking this straight from the little packet I got today.

Sippy Cup vs. Straw Cup -excerpt from article at www.talktools.net

When children drink from a bottle or breast, they perform something speech therapists refer to as suckle-swallow. The tongue lays flat and moves mostly in a back-and-forth pattern.

Drinking from a regular cup, however, requires a more complicated swallow. The cheeks and lips suck the liquid onto the tongue, then the tongue squeezes, lifts and propels the water down the throat. That action helps build the muscles required for proper speech-at least according to school experts.

But with a sippy cup, according to the critics, the tongue doesn't get enough action. "It's wreaking havoc on that tongue position," says Charlotte A. Boshart, a speech pathologist in Temecula, Calif. "It's just like sucking your thumb all the way up until you're five or six years old" says Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, a speech pathologist in Tuscon, Ariz.

Most Children who develop speech difficulties after drinking from sippy cups are easily cured, says Ms. Johnson. Their speech usually improves as soon as they begin drinking from other vessels.

I really couldn't understand why there was such a push to get Squirt to start drinking from a cup and today it actually clicked! I'm tossing all his sippy cups today (well, may keep one) and work a lot more on the open cup drinking. I think I am going to need some more of those bibs that cover everything.

There is really a lot of good information in these little packets. If anyone is interested, please let me know. I have packets on gross motor development balance & coordination, fine motor, sensory, language, and articulation & oral.
Here is the toy list they gave us today. I really like it because it says right on there price, age, and what areas it will help.