Mastery of oral abilities allows us to eat and drink a variety of foods and liquids, as well as produce sounds and intelligible words, sentences, and narratives.

Typical oral-motor development occurs in a predictable progressive pattern. Both strength and coordination must be achieved in order to master oral efficiency in both speech and feeding. Sensory awareness and consistency are essential for both feeding and speech. Delayed oral-motor and/or oral-sensory skills can include:

-difficulty tolerating new foods, textures, flavors
-food avoidance
-gagging
-chewing/mouthing non-food items (shirt collar, pencil, sleeve, etc)
-excessive saliva
-drooling
-open mouth posture
-flaccid tongue
-unclear sound production
-speech production that is difficult for others to understand