Tongue Thrust Therapy Program

Did you know that up to 81% of children with speech impairments have an underlying tongue thrust causing their articulation delay? The way a child swallows impacts the development of their tongue muscle strength, control, and coordination. Children who swallow with an immature swallow or a tongue thrust swallow are not developing their tongues appropriately to be able to produce a variety of speech sounds correctly - most specifically the sounds s, z, l, t,d, n, r, sh, k, and g. If you have a child on your caseload with these sound errors - you must consider treating the underlying problem - the tongue thrust.

The Tongue Thrust Therapy Program is designed to be used for children 7 years and older under the direction of a certified Speech Language Pathologist. In using this program, a Speech Language Pathologist will be able to evaluate and treat irregular open-mouth postures and swallowing disorders associated with tongue thrust. The program teaches clients to increase the awareness of their mouth, facial muscles, and tongue postures. Clients are taught techniques to improve their muscle strength and coordination. Most importantly, through this program, a client's oral musculature is retrained to produce a correct and mature swallow pattern free of any thrust movement or pressure.

The program provides an informal assessment to help determine if a tongue thrust exists and/or the severity level of a tongue thrust. The program offers weekly therapy session guidelines. Each weekly guideline contains multiple exercises to be taught by the Speech Language Pathologist to a client on a consistent weekly basis. The client then practices the exercises throughout the week, tracking their practice on the exercise worksheets. The videos, written descriptions, and tips are provided to ensure the exercises are taught and practiced correctly.

You can also purchase the "Tongue Thrust Therapy" App on the app store which provides you with the entire tongue thrust therapy program.