Investigating Feeding Problems and Oral Motor Skills in Children With Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) can cause motor, sensory, cognitive, and communicative problems and poor feeding performances in children. Feeding problems could be life-threatening and negatively affect cognitive and physical growth. This study investigates the frequency of response to oral motor skills, the frequency and severity of feeding problems, and the relationship between age and oral motor skills with feeding problems in children with CP aged 2 to 7 years.

This was an observational and cross-sectional study. The participants were 60 children (26 girls and 34 boys) with CP with a mean age of 4.76±1.71 years. The screening tool for eating problems and oral motor assessment scale assessed participants’ feeding and oral motor skills. The Spearman test determined the correlation between age and oral motor dysfunctions with feeding problems.

The present study revealed that 80% of participants indicated feeding problems in the screening tool of the eating problems test. Problems with feeding skills (51.5%) were the most frequent. Furthermore, the most frequent response of participants to “closing the lips while feeding with a spoon” was 46.7%, and “sucking with straw,” equaled 55.0%,” which was passive. For other items, the most frequent response of the examinees was “functional.” Finally, the results showed no significant correlation (P<0.05) between age and mean scores of frequency and severity of feeding problems. A significant negative correlation was found between mean scores of oral motor skill with frequency (P<0.001, r=-0.476) and severity (P=0.001, r=-0.424) of feeding problems.

The majority of children with CP have problems with feeding and oral motor skills. Some skills in the fields of feeding and oral motor should be noticed more by speech-language pathologists and included in their therapeutic program, especially “feeding skills,” “closing the lips while feeding with a spoon,” and “sucking with straw.”