Oral Functions
Feeding
Eating is more complex than walking or talking. This vital function requires twenty-six muscles and six cranial nerves to produce a single swallow!
Pediatric feeding difficulties prevent the child from thriving physically, cognitively, and/or emotionally. Sucking and swallowing are instinctual only in the first few weeks of life. After that, these actions must be learned, making early intervention critical.
Poor sucking and swallowing skills
make speech production almost impossible.
Nationwide, over a million children have been diagnosed with feeding difficulties and many thousands go undiagnosed. Eighty percent of children with developmental disabilities have accompanying feeding issues.
Feeding challenges also disrupt the typical establishment of bonding and positive interaction between parents and children. Struggles in a feeding relationship further impact social-emotional progression in children and, in turn, can hinder language development.
Speech &
Language
Speech, language, and communication are at the heart of how children
learn, grow, and connect with the people and world around them.
Frequently children with speech and language delays present with some level of oral feeding difficulties. This is because feeding and speech-language development are manifestations of shared, underlying neural and muscular preprocesses in a child.
In addition, feeding and speech-language developments are interactive, communicative, and social in nature.
Any disruption in physiological, neurological, and muscular processes involved can create a hindrance in typical feeding and speech-language development.
Oral Function
Evaluation
Yichien's Oral Function Evaluation is a clinically driven assessment that seeks to understand how the child's oral system is currently functioning.
Yichien uses clinical observation, developmental analysis, and functional tasks to evaluate oral-motor skills, vocalization patterns, attention, and parent-child interaction, helping her to understand each individual child’s needs and to customize the most effective path forward.
New and returning clients must have an evaluation prior to treatment.