Therapists often apply oral-sensory stimulation to children with eating problems with the expectation that sensory stimulation will facilitate chewing and swallowing. Evidence from the literature to support such an expectation is inconsistent, which may be due to the difficulty of separating the sensory from the motor component when working with the eating-impaired child The present study addresses the question of whether any correlation between measures of chewing and oral sensation can be shown in healthy normal children by using normative data from a chewing assessment (Gisel, 1988a) and a sensory assessment (Gisel & Schwob, 1988).
Eighty-six children between the ages of 5 and 8 participated in this study; 15 were 5 years old, 26 were 6 years old, 26 were 7 years old, and 19 were 8 years old. Significant correlations were found between the time (in seconds) for chewing viscous foods and perception of size as measured by an oral form discrimination task The data support the idea that there may be an association between oral form perception and chewing; however, the nature of this association is still unknown.
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