For the past 6 weeks, Anna has become more and more focused on her oral sensations. She constantly has her hands and fingers in her mouth. She even has started to chew on her shirts, chew on her bunny's ears, chew on anything to get this oral fix.
Her speech teacher asked me 3 weeks ago if I have noticed this and I was so thankful that she had brought it up. Her suggestions- straws to chew on, gum, eat more chewy granola bars and chewy foods and a electric toothbrush. She says it's common for this age to be oral but Anna's need for oral stimulation is pretty high right now.
Hopefully with age this will pass. We are doing our best not to make such a big deal out of it but it is pretty gross!
Any suggestions out there beyond the ones our speech teacher suggested? She's also talking with the BV Occupational Therapist to see if she has any suggestions.
Much Love,
Jenny
PS She is improving in her speech. We just got her progress report and she isn't there yet, but she is sure making progress on individual words and certain combinations. She still have such a positive attitude about the classes and homework and loves Miss Lisa her teacher. She can't wait to do the homework everyday too. We sure got lucky on this one :)
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I always suggest the water bottles with the chewy "straws" like the Camelback ones. I don't know if you necessarily want her walking around drinking water all the time, but it's a great solution if you think it would work.
ReplyDeleteBTW - I have a student who chews on things due to stress. When it was really bad, she chewed on her glasses & they were ruined. Mom suggested (no, wait, insisted) that her daughter should have gum in class ... so now I'm dealing with 1 kid in a class of 25 that gets to chew gum in class when chewing gum breaks a school rule. Awesome.