Oral‐motor dysfunction in children who are failing to thrive

Abstract

ABSTRACT  A whole population prospective survey of inner‐city infants (N=2510), aged from birth to 15 months, found the prevalence of failure to thrive (FTT), unassociated with any medical aetiology, to be 3.3%. A speech therapist, blind to case status, used the Schedule for Oral Motor Assessment (SOMA) to rate abilities across a range of food textures and fluids. One in four FTT cases, but only 11% of comparisons, obtained dysfunction scores outside the normal range. Most difficulty was observed with purees, least with liquids. Oral‐motor dysfunction did not simply reflect developmental delay. SOMA scores did not correlate with either the mental or psychomotor index of the Bayley Scales of ..