Oral Motor

What is Oral Motor Skills and can games/toys help?

Children can suffer from poor oral motor skills for several reasons, including physiological or neurological issues, or because of conditions associated with developmental delay, such as autism. In many children, however, there is no apparent cause for the difficulty in making oral movements, and there is often no underlying learning disability.

In children who experience issues with oral motor skills, there is generally a lack of strength in and control over the mouth, tongue and jaw, making even simple movements difficult – such as opening and closing the mouth – and impacting on the ability to eat and speak. Strengthening these muscles is the key to improving a child’s oral motor skills, and to achieving better educational and social outcomes.

Improving Oral Motor Skills With Fun & Games

The good news is, with early diagnosis and muscle therapy, particularly at the point of language development, children with poor oral motor skills can dramatically improve their mouth movements and go on to acquire good communication skills.

But how do you get children to practice their oral motor skills? Make it fun, of course!

At Fun Stuff, we aim to provide children with engaging oral motor skill games and toys, so that exercising their muscles and practicing speech is always enjoyable. This makes it that much easier for parents, teachers and therapists as well!

Many of our games focus on tongue stimulation, strengthening and movement, and lip strengthening and movement, such as the Can Do Oral-Motor Game Boards and the Can Do Oral Motor Fun Deck. These games combine oral exercises with stimulating the child’s imagination and sense of fun, so they’ll never get bored.

For slightly older children, our Artic Photos series turns the dry subject of practicing articulation and language into loads of fun. Every Artic Photo Set contains 10 decks of cards, each one focusing on a different sound or combination of sounds. These can be used to play a variety of classic card games, such as ‘Go Fish’ and ‘Memory’, not only developing children’s oral motor skills, but their use of language and recall at the same time.

Browse our selection of oral motor skills toys and games below or have a look at our full range of language and speech resources here.