01/23/2026
👅🥪Today’s Feeding Therapy Family Goal:
“To eat a sandwich without pocketing food in his cheeks then spitting it out.”
🤗Modeling is sooooo important when teaching chewing & swallowing across the lifespan.
👍🏻SHOW & TELL kids how to eat and drink. Show them how to use tools & utensils.
🤗 Choice making between foods, utensils & toys keeps kids motivated to practice the therapeutic tasks 🥰
👅Strips of foods & layered sandwiches were used to teach tongue lateralization, but his chewing was inconsistent so large food pieces were not swallowed. Oral fatigue was evident.
🤗 He was very motivated to progress to BITE & PULL practice with the sandwich but showed reduced chewing & oral pocketing of the food in his cheeks.
👄 Here, I modeled chewing & licking games using the Side Biters (Level 3 & Mini Biter) without food and then with a cold diced apple inside (sensory alerting, sweet flavor). 🍎
⬆️These therapeutic oral motor feeding activities assisted him in improving oral agility & stamina for bolus containment, chewing practice, tongue sweeping, maneuvering the sandwich in his mouth & increased swallow activation speed.
⬇️ Drooling was reduced. Saliva control improved.
⬇️ Reduced oral pocketing, spits outs & gagging with possible aspiration risk.
👄Side Biters are fun, functional therapeutic tools that can be used with or without diced or frozen foods to support safe lip closure, jaw, tongue strength, agility & swallow activation while eating that reduces risky oral pocketing and spit outs.
🍔Whole foods can be used or modified in the same session.
👅 As with all oral motor and swallowing techniques and tools a complete dysphagia assessment is required prior to professional use of all 5 GNOSH, Inc the therapeutic chewing and swallowing exercise tools.
Chew on!
