Assessment & Treatment of Oral Motor, Feeding and Myofunctional Disorders in the School-Based Setting

Course Description School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) often receive limited training in their graduate training regarding orofacial myofunctional, oral motor and/or feeding in the schools. Most trainings are post-graduate and voluntary. Misconceptions such as “it is not educationally relevant” or “SLPs cannot have physical contact with students” are prevalent in the educational setting but are often the result of hearsay rather than board approved policies. The Scope of Practice and Code of Ethics written by the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) recognizes that SLPs have oral motor, orofacial myofunctional, motor praxis, feeding and swallowing within the domains of assessment and treatment when properly trained to do so. The SLPs scope of practice does not necessarily change by job placement and SLPs are often challenged to balance the variations of what their role is with these disorders in the school-based setting. What therapists should know, is t