Windmills Are Fun

When Dylan was a younger I was never told the importance of how great it is for kids with down syndrome to learn to drink from a straw. This helps encourage the tongue retraction and discourage tongue protrusion. But, most of the time, when the child learns to drink from the straw initially, they will drink with their tongue sticking out and therefore be sucking with their tongue, not their lips. This does the exact opposite of what you want the straw drinking to do. This encourages tongue protrusion and completely prohibits tongue retraction.

We had started Dylan out on a sippy cup once he turned one, but it was more of a bottle with a soft spout.  We let him start with this not knowing that we should have started him on a sippy cup that had a straw. At that time I was just excited that he was drinking on his own. After awhile Dylan's OT therapist said we needed to try and get him to drink from a straw. She recommended us getting the
"Honey Bear". It is a bear cup that has a straw, but you can help squeeze it when the child is learning to drink out of it. This helps them understand that something is coming out of it. Well..Dylan wanted nothing to do with it, he just wanted his sippy cup.

So after months of trying we decided to try other things and work back words. We got rid of the soft spout sippy cup and got him onto a hard spout sippy cup that actually is better for them. It does not let their tongue just lay flat. We also started doing some more oral motor skills with him blowing and using his lips more. One of the activities that I have been working so hard on is getting him to blow at the little party windmill toys. This is a great activity because it helps him to understand the "cause" and "effect" this promotes that if they blow that the windmill will spin, so it helps to get him excited! After about 2 months Dylan finally used his lips and was blowing that little windmill. I was so excited! Dylan has been doing so awesome and we are so proud of him!


IMG 5650 from Michelle Lopez on Vimeo.