A clinical protocol to increase chewing and assess mastication in children with feeding disorders.

The team worked with three children who had feeding disorders. Each child swallowed food too soon and chewed too little.

They used a simple chew-tracking protocol. Staff counted chews per bite and praised extra chews. They blocked early swallowing with a gentle chin prompt.

All three kids began to chew each bite longer. Early swallowing stopped during meals.

Parents and staff could run the protocol with almost no training.

Kadey et al. (2013) took the opposite path. They changed food texture instead of counting chews. Both teams got safer eating, showing you can build the skill or change the food.

Remijn et al. (2014) give us a ruler. Their 8-item MOE scale measures chewing in kids 6-72 months. You can plug it into the chew-tracking protocol to score progress with numbers.

Kim et al. (2018) moved the idea younger. They used oral stimulation with a Cri du Chat newborn and saw milk intake triple. The chew protocol can travel across ages and diagnoses.

If a child gulps food whole, you now have two low-cost choices: count chews or test textures. Start by tracking chews for one meal. Mark each chew aloud and praise the last one. Add the MOE scale if you need a score for insurance. The whole plan takes five extra minutes and needs no gear.