Year: 2015

The Down Syndrome Connection of the Bay Area’s mission is to promote the unique contributions of children and adults with Down syndrome by providing direct services to them and their families, and to educate the general public by fostering inclusive and integrated involvement with the Down syndrome community and society at large. The DSCBA has put together a […]

Belle is starting to imitate words more which I am excited about. To date, she has approximately 18 words and 18 signs. She is very animated and quite dramatic at times 🙂 Annabelle continues to eat well and is doing great with her new Straw #4. She has improved tremendously with her “chomping” exercises in the […]

Annabelle is continuing to do well with her straws and eating. Several of her teeth are coming in all at the same time so she is getting to eat a bigger variety of foods, which she enjoys. We continue to do her OPT exercises twice a day. She doesn’t love them, but I try to […]

I left everyone last month by saying that Elizabeth was going to school!  What an accomplishment for her and her strength. Yes our little Elizabeth is in school.  Everyday of every week she is in school.  She has a great intervention teacher and a very nice inclusion teacher.  The inclusion teacher is the one who […]

I recently attended the “Three-Part Treatment Plan for Oral Placement Therapy” and it was great. Monica was the presenter and I really learned a lot. It helped to show me what exercises and goals we will continue to progress towards. I know that Belle has a long way to go, but being in a routine of daily exercises for the […]

“Early Oral-Motor Interventions for Pediatric Feeding Problems: What, When and How” Authors: Cecilia J. Manno, Catherine Fox, Peggy S. Eicher and MaryLouise E. Kerwin JEIBI VOLUME 2, ISSUE NO. 3, Fall, 2005 ABSTRACT Children with developmental delays often have feeding difficulties resulting from oral-motor problems. Based on both clinical experience and a review of published […]

Hi Therapists, What do I do for a 19 year old student with a severe underbite (a gap of ½ inch between top and bottom teeth) when trying to use the jaw stability protocol? Thank you. When you are working on the Bite Blocks for jaw stability and the Bite Tube hierarchy, you will want to make sure […]

I need advice please! I am seeing a 5 year old child with severe childhood apraxia of speech together with dysarthria (specifically weakness of tongue and lips). So far his lip strength and movement has improved a lot, but I am really struggling with his tongue. He can protrude his tongue beautifully, retraction we are working […]

It is funny or maybe not funny, but ironic that with a special needs child all the things you have in place and are working one minute can become things that need changed and adjusted the very next. I know the same can be said for life with typical developing children as I have two also, but the […]

Earlier this month Annabelle was spitting out almost all of her food. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least. We knew that she needed all the calories that she could get because she is still a pretty tiny little thing.  In addition, we knew that she had created a horrible eating pattern of pushing food out […]