Under registering

We had Help Me Grow come out today to evaluate Ellies speech. Two women were here playing with Ellie, asking her to do random tasks and watching her talk. They were here early so Ellie was finishing breakfast. Lately Ellie has been holding food in her mouth for a long period of time. She did it today with her bagel. This causes her to keep her mouth closed and "throat talk". Sounds will come out of the back of her mouth almost like shes humming. She does this even when she doesn't have food in her mouth.

We wont get the official report until next Friday, but they gave me a basic run down of her results. She is developing normally in her gross and fine motor skills and her cognitive abilities. Her speech is delayed, but she's made huge progress in the past 2 weeks so they aren't overly concerned, but they did mention one issue that all started with the bagel. Its called under registering. They described it as her mouth being asleep. It knows it should be awake and its trying to wake up, it just isn't happening. Thats why she is keeping food in her mouth and at least partly why she is having food issues. The food is waking it up so she always wants more. Luckily, this is an easy problem to fix. They are recommending someone come out and show us some exercises for her to do which get her tongue and lips moving which will also help "wake up" her mouth. In the mean time, they have recommended lots of funny faces, licking suckers and lots of straws. They also suggested rubbing lemon in her mouth before she eats to help with some of her food issues. I've never heard of any of this so I'm anxious to get the full report and get more information from a therapist. We'll keep you posted!