Ethan's Sensory Diet - Oral Sensory

So far, I have talked about how we were discovering Ethan's Sensory Diet by trying out his different senses. We have explored his proprioceptive system, his vestibular system, and his tactile senses. Next, we started looking at his Oral Sensory Input. This includes tastes & smells. "Oral receptors respond & measure touch and taste stimuli to the mouth. We use our mouths to organize, calm or alert ourselves. Oral input has a range of characteristics including: The Action (what you do...chew, lick, swallow, etc.), The Quality (how it feels or tastes...spicy, bitter, hot, cold, slimy, crunchy), and The Medium (with what...food, bubbles, straw, hands, etc.) When you think about it, what kinds of "mouth" things do we do to help us focus or stay awake when we have been in a long meeting....chew gum, drink coffee, smoke breaks, bite nails, crunch ice, have a snack, chew on our pens, etc. Same thing here!

I was very excited to start in this area because this could help with his feeding. Not only were his fine motor skills under-developed which made feeding himself with silverware a challenge, but he is an EXTREMELY picky eater! He definitely did NOT get that from me! So...I was SUPER excited to learn more about this section.

During our OT session, his therapist did a variety of games with Ethan in order to see his response. She had Ethan blow bubbles, blow craft pompons & styrofoam balls across the table by blowing through a straw, blowing tissues & feathers, and blowing into a plastic tube that was coming out of soapy water...thus making more bubbles with his air. When we did all this, she noticed that Ethan was having difficulty blowing because he lacked the ability to make an "O" with his mouth. She told me to continue with these activities to help develop those particular muscles because it would help with his speech development as well! CRAZY!!!!

After those activities, she pulled out a bunch of food. She laid them all out on the table & wanted to see what he would do or eat. He chose to eat the animal crackers & Twizzlers. She told me that this could indicate that he needs something to "wake up" his senses in his mouth. We talked before about how Ethan's body craves deep pressure in order to be calm. This eating test told us that Ethan's mouth needs to be stimulated. This would also be another avenue to keep Ethan calm when he starts to have a meltdown....chew toys. As a baby, Ethan was a biter, and he will still occasionally chew on some toys. So, this totally made sense to me! This is why he hates to eat oatmeal, mashed potatoes, bananas, mac-n-cheese, lunch meat, cheese, etc.....they are all soft/runny foods. They don't wake up his senses in his mouth. But he LOVES popcorn, chips, cereal, goldfish crackers, fruit snacks, bacon, or anything crunchy/chewy. And these are things that would "wake up" his mouth.

So, now, when I make dinner or snack for Ethan, I am always sure to include a food that is "alerting"....bacon with breakfast, chips at lunch, fruit snacks at dinner, etc. If Ethan has one of these foods, he will eat his other foods....CRAZY! Another trick that would work is to have Ethan brush his teeth BEFORE we eat..because the brushing would wake up his mouth. She also gave us a Nuk brush (therapy aid) that he can chew on before meals or when he is anxious. We use this a lot as well, and he LOVES it! We also have a TON of chewing items that we use in order to keep Ethan calm. Suckers & Twizzlers are a big one, but if he is with other children, they want the candy too so we can't use these all the time. Our therapist gave us an amazing trick. The chewing aids that are available tend to be very expensive when you need several or your child chews through them a lot. So she told us to us aquarium tubing! I know that sounds strange, but Ethan LOVES it! And I have been able to use it to make a variety of things with it. The pictures below are Ethan's Sensory Survival Kit. We keep the tote at home & fill the zipper pouch to take with us when we go somewhere. These are just the oral therapy toys, but you can see some of the things I have been able to make out of the aquarium tubing. Now...don't judge me, but I also bought some pet chew toys, took the squeakers out & washed them. He loves to chew on those too! ANYTHING that I can find that will work for him, I will use!

Ethan's Sensory Survival Kit

All of his portable calming sensory toys

The Oral Toys: Ring Pop, Twizzlers, 2 pet chew toys, vibrating tooth brush, bubbles, sucker, chew necklace & toy.

I used aquarium tubing & beads from a baby teether to make these toys. His favorite are the knots in the tubing.

 So, after doing 19 at home experimental therapy activities which included buying a ton of food from a Oral Motor Grocery List, here is what we learned that Ethan's senses crave in this area.....

1. Chewing & sucking on rubber tubing/pacifier/licorice
2. Sucking on sports bottles/pacifier/sucker
3. Eating certain food - crunchy, sweet, salty or spicy

Isn't this stuff AMAZING! I still think that EVERY child could benefit from discovering their sensory diet with an occupational therapist!