Hand Flapping Next To Mouth Plus Constant Dribble

[nannynick]

Hand flapping next to mouth plus dribble... a lot of dribble. This is not normal for a 9 year old, so I'm thinking that it is some kind of developmental delay. Anyone come across this before? Child's mum says it's PDD (family have spent some time in the US), so that to me just says it is part of the autistic spectrum.

Anyone know how to reduce the dribbling?

Not quite the same but recently my ds (8yrs, ASD) has started a sort of hand-flap crossed with a licking of his fingers - I don't usually interfere with hand-flapping etc. but as he has very sensitive skin I don't want him wiping dirty saliva around his face too much and making his skin bad so have been stopping him when I see him. Sorry no-idea how you reduce dribbling though.

Dd2 hand flaps and dribble, but she's only 2.6, she has Autism.

There is an American speech therapy programme called talk tools which has exercises to help with dribbling. It looks better than the Mrs Lips and Mr Tongue we had from SLT.

Hi Nick.

Depends on what is causing the dribbling, I suspect. Is it an inability to or dislike of swallowing? Or is it that the mouth is constantly open for some reason? Or does he actually like dribblng?

DD1 (4.5) dribbles sometimes - she gets very "chewy" and when she spends all day chewing her teething ring, she drools pints as her mouth is open and it doesn't occur to her to make the effort not to drool so it just pours out. But if she's just sucking her thumb she doesn't drool because with the mouth largely closed she swallows fine. So, bad mummy that I am, if she's drooling too much and I think it's getting to be a habit, I take the chew toy away for a couple of days.

Don't know if that helps at all.

Teeth? sore throat? earache?

My son 8.2 yrs dribbles, grinds and chews a lot with these things.

My DD who is 6.5 still handflaps a lot, is always mouthing things and dribbles a lot. We have tried numerous things to reduce the dribbling - the patches worked but made her skin very sore - we also tried some tablets which again worked but made her very hypersensitive so we had to stop them - we have tried mouth exercises, lots of mouth stimulation but nothing has really made a lot of difference. She has very low muscle tone and has problems swallowing so I fear we will just have to wait until she develops more tone in that area.

Thanks all, sounds like he isn't the only child to do it. I don't know him well yet - have only done a quick meet and greet - so I'm on an initial hunt around for information.

r3dh3d - Mouth seemed to be constantly open, so I suppose encouraging him to close his mouth would be something to try.