My son has low muscle tone and it creates problems in chewing and biting. He is getting much better at chewing but still will not take a bite out of things, rather he shoves whatever it is in his mouth. Do any of you have any suggestions/ideas what I can do to help him learn how?
lol, awwe my son used to do that (he has low muscle tone too) -he overstuffed his mouth and got the chewing down before taking a bite out of something. All I did was get close up and tell him to "Bite and rip!" as I did it to a hamburger or whatever -right there in his face. Over and over and over for probably a year, as possible -sometimes expanded on it. I did it as an example in an over acted way -very animated, in a light hearted way....just made a big show of it so he really saw it and got right there in his face (as possible)....he often thought it was funny and started biting his food (took awhile). (so everything didn't have to be cut tiny). It stuck...that was when he was 3 or 4 and hes ten now. lol, sorry I don't have any special OT answers for that one or tricks....just did that and prayed about it. Good luck!
P.S. (he chews well now too, I didn't know what to do about that the O.T. & teacher @ his school worked on that with him and did really well.) -If/when he bit off too much (overstuffing went to bites that were too big when it started improving) of course I'd take the too much out of his mouth and redo the demo saying "small bite" as well as just generally worked with him, sometimes started (but did not finish) a small rip in a sandwich basically guiding him to take a smaller bite.....it all just sort of flowed naturally. Worked on whatever obviously needed working on as it came up and stumbled through. Maybe an OT would have some input on what to do.?
Better Health !
- mommaboudreaux
on Jul. 19, 2010 at 6:14 AM