Oral motor functioning, frequency of swallowing and drooling in normal children and in children with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Attempts to eliminate drooling in children with cerebral palsy have ranged from speech therapy to radical surgery. Drooling primarily results from an overflow of saliva from the mouth due to dysfunctional voluntary oral motor activity, improper swallowing, or oral sphincter deficits and rarely from hypersalivation. A study was undertaken to determine typical orofacial electromyographic patterns and swallowing frequencies of normal children and children with cerebral palsy with oral involvement who do, and who do not drool, as well as to determine the correlation between swallowing frequency and drooling rate. Results suggest that drooling in the pediatric cerebral palsy population is caused by both inefficient and infrequent swallowing.