This advice-column-style blog for SLPs was authored by Pam Marshalla from 2006 to 2015, the archives of which can be explored here. Use the extensive keywords list found in the right-hand column (on mobile: at the bottom of the page) to browse specific topics, or use the search feature to locate specific words or phrases throughout the entire blog.
Oral Motor Tool Kit
By Pam Marshalla
Q: Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for building a basic oral motor therapy kit?
There are literally thousands of objects one could use as an aid to oral movement in articulation therapy. I call them “the toys and tools of articulation training.”
Charles Van Riper called them “phonetic placement devices” and wrote:
“Every available device should be used to make the student understand clearly what positions of tongue, jaw, and lips are to be assumed” (Van Riper, 1954).
If I had to build an oral motor kit with as few tools as possible, I would construct it with the following simple set:
- Straws of various sizes: To bite on to stabilize the jaw; And to place in front of the teeth in order to monitor the size, shape, and direction of the central airstream.
- Siren or spirometer: To discover and practice inhaling, exhaling, and aspects of exhaling.
- Kazoo: To discover and practice voice and its aspects – projection, prolongation, and so forth.
- Nuk Oral Massagers: To provide tactile stimulation to the lips, tongue, palate, and velum; To stimulate chewing movements; To bite on the handle for a low jaw (wide mouth) position.
- A Tongue Cleaner (Scraper): In order to teach the tongue to curl up and back and to increase tension in the tongue.