Oral-Motor Exercises

Adults and children with various neurological conditions, such as stroke and cerebral palsy, may benefit from oral-motor exercises. Do these simple exercises to help increase your oral-motor range of motion and strength.

Lips

1. Open and close your mouth
2. Pucker your lips (like whistling), then relax
3. Smile, then relax
4. Pucker and hold, then smile and hold
5. Put lips together tightly, then smack open
6. Pucker your lips and swing left, then right
7. Puff out cheeks and hold air in, then slowly blow the air out

Tongue

1. Stick your tongue straight out, hold, then pull it back in
2. Move your tongue to the right corner of your mouth then to the left on the outside of your mouth
3. Push the inside of your cheek out with your tongue on the right side, then the left side
4. Lift your tongue up to your upper lip, then your lower lip; don’t use your jaw to lift your tongue up
5. Lift your tongue up behind your front teeth as if your were saying ‘la’
6. Open your mouth and lick your lips with your tongue in a wide circle
7. Place your tongue tip inside right check, push out while moving tongue in a circle from left to right around your teeth and gums then repeat in opposite direction.
8. Place oral swab in right cheek, move it to left cheek, using only your tongue. Then move it back to the right cheek.

Tongue Base

1. Click your tongue on the roof of your mouth
2. Stick your tongue out, then pull your tongue back in until it reaches the back of your throat
3. Say the syllable ‘ka’
4. Say the syllable ‘ga’
5. Say the syllable ‘ag’
6. Swallow very hard
7. Stick out your tongue and hold it between your teeth while swallowing as hard as you can. Keep tongue between your teeth.