An Occupational Therapist’s Favorite Oral Motor Tools 

Oral motor tools are designed to help children increase awareness of their mouth, strengthen their jaw, and coordinate their mouth movements for language and feeding development. Oral motor tools also provide great sensory exploration, leading to better regulation and engagement. With so many to choose from, you may be wondering what the experts would suggest! This blog will explore and explain some of our favorite oral motor tools and how to use them to maximize fun and function. 

Top 5 Tools to Develop Oral Motor Skills 

While there are many oral tools out there, we’ve narrowed down some of our favorites that are easy to incorporate into your routine, with maximum benefits to improve your child’s oral function.  

Bubble Blowers and Whistles

Does your child love to blow bubbles? What about train horns? These beloved pastimes are a childhood staple, but did you know this activity not only provides hours of entertainment, but also great benefits too? While breathing in and out, your child is working on deep respirations, which strengthen their posture muscles and can be calming for the mind and body.  

Why we love it: We love bubble blowers and whistles as a preparation activity before eating. Deep breathing is good for digestion, and the calming effect of the breath helps prepare for mindful eating. Different-sized spouts and textures will help your child work on lip closure, a necessary skill to drink through a straw or get food off a spoon. It can also help your child practice the “suck-swallow-breathe” pattern that we need to be able to eat safely.  

How to use it: When picking out a bubble blower or whistle, make sure it requires breath to activate, like in the picture above.  

Expert Tip: If you don’t have any bubble blowers, try Bubble Mountain! Fill a bowl halfway with water and some dish soap. Using a straw, blow into the bowl to make a mountain of bubbles! How high can you get your mountain? 

ARK’s Z-Vibe 

The Z-Vibe is a tool that can vibrate with a variety of different attachments, including animals, tubes, spoons, and probe tips. The Z-Vibe can be used with the vibration on or off, depending on your child’s needs.

Why we love it: This tool can be used before or during mealtimes with your child. We love this tool to wake your child’s mouth up! Using the Z-Vibe can help alleviate overstuffing and drooling while eating by increasing awareness. For children who have a limited number of textures in their food repertoire, this tool can introduce different textures and shapes. It is also a great tool for when your child is teething to alleviate that uncomfortable sensation in their mouth. 

How to use it: There are a variety of ways to use the Z-Vibe, and each attachment can be used multiple ways. To increase comfort, model using the tool on yourself and let your child explore at their own pace. Using the animal attachments, pretend to feed the animal food for increased food exposure for your picky eaters! Additionally, you can use the ears as a spoon to scoop, transfer, and self-feed. The probes can be used to massage the muscles around and inside the mouth.  

NUK Brush 

The NUK brush is shaped like a toothbrush with a soft silicone probe at the end. This tool is great for kids who crave tactile input and exploration of the mouth.  

Why we love it: The NUK brush is a great introduction to teeth brushing, increasing mouth awareness, and oral motor massage. It can also be used as an initial spoon for babies. For children who aren’t ready for vibration or different attachments, this is a great first oral motor tool! 

How to use it: Start tooth brushing in a controlled environment with the NUK brush by sitting at the table with a mirror placed right in front of your child. The soft ridges of the probe provide increased stimulation to learn the motions of efficient toothbrushing. Additionally, the brush can be used as an oral motor massager both inside and outside the mouth, on the cheeks, lips, chin, teeth, and tongue. Try dipping the NUK brush in pureed foods as a fun way to explore new textures and flavors with your child! 

Talk Tools Jiggler 

Like the Z-Vibe, Jigglers are a vibration tool with a variety of large animal attachments and can be used with different vibration settings, or off, depending on your child’s preferences. Jigglers are great for increasing sensory awareness of the jaw and lips. Additionally, these tools can help improve lip closure and reduce muscle tightness for easier and safer eating habits.  

Why we love it: With four different animals, these tools bring fun to feeding. For our younger kids who are exploring everything with their mouths, this is a great tool to have on hand. Each animal has its own distinct textures, shapes, and surfaces for use and exploration.  

How to use it: Imaginary play is the name of the game! These animals love exploring the different properties of food. The frog and sloth have large, smooth heads, great for teaching lip rounding. The dragon has many different textures for sensory exploration, and the unicorn has wings that can be used as a utensil.  

Chewies 

Chewies come in all shapes, sizes, and textures. Some are hollow, some are solid, and some even vibrate! Chewies are designed to support jaw strength and coordination needed for chewing, but are also a great tool for regulation.  

Why we love it: Chewies promote resistive chewing and biting skills for increased jaw strengthening for the management of harder-to-chew textures, like baked chicken. They can help promote tongue movement to manage and swallow our food safely. For our kids who are learning to transition off the bottle, chewies are a great way to promote foundational oral motor skills needed for chewing solid foods. Additionally, chewies provide lots of organizing input to your child’s body and can help with self-regulation and even reduce teeth grinding.  

How to use it: Chewies can be used anytime throughout the day. To work on strengthening your child’s jaw, place the chewy on their back molars and chomp like a dinosaur 10 times!  

These are just a few of our favorite tools to help increase oral motor skills! What are some other tools you’ve found useful? Let us know by leaving a comment below! 

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