Wednesday, July 11, 2012

TalkTools Straw #7

Straw #7 is the second to the last one in the TalkTools straw hierarchy kit. Matthew used this straw for 3 months, from April through June.


It must have been harder to drink with this straw as he didn't transition to this straw as easily as he did with the previous one. It seemed longer than coily straw #6. But as with the others in the straw hierarchy kit, he used the straw daily for most of his drinks, even at school. I sent one straw and cup to his preschool daily for him to use at snack time. He eventually warmed up to this straw and could drink a whole cup of orange juice, lemonade, or chocolate almond milk without any issues.

In the beginning of July, we started with straw #8. On straw #8, I noticed he regressed back to a pattern of suckling (straw resting on tongue when the tongue is too far forward then moves forward more, rather than back, when sucking on the straw) instead of sipping (using lips only). We went back to straw #7 for a day to see if we had moved on too quickly. He did just fine for the most part and easily corrected with verbal cues from me (as seen in the video). The speech therapist whom we work with in NACD suggested that we move on to straw #8 with more manual support and a tactile cue such as a lip block or medical tape 1/4-inch from the drinking tip.

1 comments:

Rochelle said...

YAY Matthew. Dariya has totally stopped the suckling with the first couple straws! Glad we did these!