Nobody Ever Told Me (or my Mother) That!

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The development of the human baby is very complex. So many amazing things happen, especially the first two years of a child’s life. If you have been as fortunate as most parents to have raised your child from birth, you may not even be aware of critical developmental skills and milestones that occur so early on. It’s nice to be able to just focus on the sheer joy of your new baby.

For parents who have adopted children from orphanages and/or are parents of children who have had  special needs since early on, we have had to learn very quickly what should be developing, but perhaps is not. My daughter was brought home from Russia at the age of 18 months. One thing (among many) that I noticed right away was how she would barely chew her food. A piece of food would go in her mouth and almost immediately a hard swallow would follow. It looked like it hurt and I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t chew.

I learned from a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) that  my daughter did not use her tongue to rotate her food around her mouth while she was chewing. In fact, she couldn’t use her tongue much. She could barely stick it out of her mouth. She did not enjoy things like popsicles and suckers; they seemed too difficult to eat.

I realized that her lack of oral muscle development was probably due in a large part to what she ate back in the orphanage. During one of those feedings, I was given a liquidy mush to spoon into her mouth. When the orphanage worker took over (because I was not feeding her quickly enough), she rapidly spooned the “food” in and ended the meal. I imagine that this was probably a necessity due to the large number of children and the low number of staff.

I eventually learned that my daughter needed oral motor exercises. The SLP provided me with exercises and instructions and I incorporated the exercises into her home-based program. Thanks to all the time that was devoted to these exercises, her improvement was fast and surprising. Eventually, she could not only stick her tongue out, but she could now touch her nose with her tongue!

Nobody Ever Told Me (or my Mother) That!

Diane Bahr is a certified Speech Language Pathologist, a massage practitioner, and an infant massage practitioner. She is co-chair of the Oral Motor Institute and works with children and adults with feeding, speech, and language disorders. She has authored a comprehensive book on feeding, speech and mouth development called  Nobody Ever Told Me (or My Mother) That! Everything from Bottles and Breathing to Healthy Speech Development.

Babies may have challenges with eating and oral motor development for many reasons. Premature babies may need more time for these skills to develop. Other babies may be highly sensitive to their environment or may have allergies that make feeding difficult. Others may have been born with physical problems to their mouths or faces that can make eating and drinking a challenge. Bahr’s book can help parents of these children by providing them with information she has learned over the past 30 years, including techniques to work with babies or toddlers and up-to-date research.

This book has many checklists, lots of nice pictures, and a few detailed diagrams. Checklists include activities with directions and a space to enter the date when you have completed the activity. The development of the mouth and oral motor activities is listed in sequential order, with a space for parents to add in a date when they first observe the skill in their child. Many developmental checklists are included and provide the approximate age for the skill to be displayed and a space for parents to enter the date that they observe the skill in their child.

Topics

There is so much information in this 400+ page book. Topics include the following:

• An entire chapter is devoted to feeding your baby, nutrition, and hydration.
• A section is devoted to allergies, the professional to see, and possible treatment options. Baer provides a variety of possible allergy symptoms, along with the most common food allergies.
• The development of the hand-mouth coordination is explored, as well as a baby’s exploration of toys through her mouth.
• Bahr explains how to conduct face, jaw, and mouth massage to a developing child’s mouth.
• Another chapter presents information on feeding your baby as he moves to higher-level feeding activities such as using a cup, eating new foods, and using a spoon.
• Tips for speech development are presented from as young as one month with speech sound development through eight years of age with speech and communication development.

There is a very informative chapter explaining how to use this information with a child with special needs, such as Down Syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, and other developmental delays. Bahr takes each of these special needs and presents the possible problems and some treatment options.

At the end of this book there are two appendices full of resources. Fifteen pages contain lists of articles, books, materials, DVDs, products, and websites. This comprehensive guide is appropriate for a parent desiring information on the development of oral-motor skills and speech in their baby.

I wish this book had been available 10 years ago for me. You won’t be disappointed with it and as one parent stated on the back cover:

“Diane Bahr’s new book shares all her expertise and is the gold standard for parents to easily understand and help in their child’s development.” ~ Susan Harrison (parent of a child with special needs)

Note: Future Horizons provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for being featured on Help! S-O-S for Parents.  The opinions expressed in this post are mine and have not been influenced in any way.