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Oral Motor Assessment and Treatment  
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Definitions of Oral Motor

"ORAL=MOUTH; MOTOR=MOVEMENT" (Pam Marshalla, MA, CCC-SLP, 2007)

According to David W. Hammer, MA, CCC-SLP (2007) the term “oral motor” is defined as “having to do with movements and placements of the oral structures such as the tongue, lips, palate, and teeth.” In his work with apraxia of speech in children, Hammer defines his oral motor strategies as “speech therapy… techniques which draw the child’s attention and effort to the oral musculature/articulators while simultaneously engaging the child in speech production practice.”

According to Diane Bahr, MS, CCC-SLP (2008), oral motor function is fine motor function of the oral mechanism (i.e., jaw, tongue, lips, cheeks) for the purposes of eating, drinking, speaking, and other mouth activities.  Oral motor treatment addresses sensory processing as well as dissociation, grading, direction, timing, and coordination of mouth movement for eating, drinking, speaking, and other mouth activities. The speech-language pathologist focuses treatment on eating, drinking, and speaking.

The Controversy

Some individuals have narrowly equated the term Oral Motor Treatment with Non-Speech Oral Exercise and Activities.  

However, Oral Motor Treatment may include the following areas:

  • Feeding/Oral Phase Swallowing
  • Motor Speech Therapy for Apraxia and Dysarthria
  • Oral Awareness/Discrimination/Facilitation
  • Oral Activities/Exercises
  • Orofacial Myofunctional Treatment

The two areas in bold are where speech-language pathologists spend most of their time in treatment. 

ORAL MOTOR TREATMENT DOES NOT EQUAL NON-SPEECH OR NON-FEEDING EXERCISE OR ACTIVITIES.

This is the website of Diane Bahr, MS, CCC-SLP, NCTMB, CIMI, a certified speech-language pathologist, massage practitioner, and infant massage instructor in private practice.  She has practiced speech-language pathology since 1980 and has taught her oral function course both nationally and internationally (e.g., Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong). Her experiences include teaching graduate, undergraduate, and continuing education courses; working with children and adults who exhibit feeding, speech, and language disorders; and publishing/presenting information and research on oral motor function, assessment, and treatment (e.g., ASHA 2008 & 2009). She is the author of the book Oral Motor Assessment and Treatment: Ages and Stages (Allyn & Bacon, 2001). She also has a new book coming out in 2010 entitled Nobody Ever Told Me (or My Mother That): Everything from Bottles and Breathing to Healthy Speech Development (Future Horizons, in press).  Diane is the co-chair of the Oral Motor Institute.  


For information on the ORAL MOTOR LITERATURE see: The Oral Motor Institute.

Mission Statement: "The OMI is established to publish monographs that demonstrate the evidence base of oral sensory and motor techniques for articulation, motor speech, and feeding treatment. Its mission is to contribute to the field of speech-language-hearing science by expanding our knowledge about the sensory and motor components of articulation, motor speech, and feeding development, disorders, assessment and treatment.

The Oral Motor Institute was founded to develop a series of monographs that could provide a more appropriate set of definitions, historical overview, and research-oriented review of the entire area of oral motor treatment." (Oral Motor Institute Website, www.oralmotorinstitute.org, 2009).